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THE 


ADTOBIOGRjiPHY OF jl SLANDER, 


BY 


EDNA LYALL.^^ ' . 


“JERRY,” 

AND OTHER STORIES. 


BY 

THE “DUCHESS.”/^ 

-'U'f 'Ct' , '!■' iir' 

/ 



NEW YORK: 

GEORGE MUNRO, RUBLISHER, 

17 TO 27 Vandewater Street, 


EDNA lA'ALL’S WOKKS 


CONTAINED IN THE SEASIDE LIBUAHY (POCKET EDITION): 


NO. 

788 In the Golden Days. 

1147 Knight-Errant. 

1149 Donovan: A Modern En- 
glishman. 


NO. 

1160 We Two. 

1173 Won by Waiting. 

1197 The Autobiography of a 
Slander. 


WOEKS BY THE DUCHESS ” 

CONTAINED IN THE SEASIDE LIBRARY (POCKET EDITION): 


NO. 

2 Molly Bawn. 

6 Portia. 

14 Airy Fairy Lilian. 

16 Phyllis. 

25 Mrs. Geoffrey. (Large type 
edition). 

950 IMrs. Geoffrey. 

29 Beauty’s Daughters. 

30 Faith and Unfailh. 

118 Loys, Lord Berresford, and 

Eric Dering. 

1 1 9 Monica, an d A Rose Distill ’d 
123 Sweet is True Love. 

129 Rossmoyne. 

134 The Witching Hour, and 
Other Stories. 

136 “ Tliat Last Rehearsal,” and 
Other Stories. 

166 Moonshine and Marguerites 
171 Fortune’s Wheel, and Other 
Stories. 

284 Doris. 

312 A AYeek’s Amusement; or, 
A AVeek in Killarney. 

342 The Baby, and One New 
Year’s Eve. 

390 Mildred Trevanion. 


NO. 

404 In Durance Vile, and Other 
Stories. 

486 Dick’s Sweetheart; or, “ () 
Tender Dolores!” 

494 A Alaiden All Forlorn, and 
Barbara. 

517 A Passive Crime, and Other 
Stories. 

541 “ As it Fell Upon a Day.” 

733 Lady Branksmere. 

771 A Mental Struggle. 

785 The Haunted Chamber. 

862 Ugly Barrington. 

875 Lady Valworth’s Diamonds 

1009 In An Evil Hour, and Other 
Stories. 

1016 A Modern Circe. 

1035 The Duchess. 

1047 Marvel. 

1103 The Honorable Mrs. Ver- 
eker. 

1123 Under-Currents. 

1197 “Jerry.” — “ That Night in 
June.” — A AYrong Turn- 
ing. — Irish Love and Mar- 
riage. 


Trust not to each accusing tongue, 
As most weak persons do; 

But still believe that story false 
Which ought not to be true. 


Sheridan. 


DEDICATED 
TO ALL 

WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. 


a 






THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF } SLANDER. 


MY FIRST STAGE. 

At last the tea came up, and so 
With that our tongues began to go. 

Now in that house you’re sure of knowing 
The smallest scrap of news that’s going. 

We find it there the wisest way 
To take some care of what we say. 

Recreation. Jane Tayi.or. 

I WAS born on the 2d September, 1886, in a small, dull, 
country town. When I say the town was dull, 1 mean, of 
course, that the inhabitants were unenterprising, for in 
itself Muddleton was a picturesque place, and though it 
labored under the usual disadvantage of a dearth of bach- 
elors and a superfluity of spinsters, it might have "been 
pleasant enough had it not been a favorite resort for my 
kith and kin. 

My father has long enjoyed a world-wide notoriety; he 
is not, however, as a rule, named in good society, though 
he habitually frequents it; and as I am led to believe that 
my autobiography will possibly be circulated by Mr. 
Mudie, and will lie about on drawing-room tables, I will 
merely mention that a most striking representation of my 
progenitor, under his nom de thedtre, Mephistopheles, 


8 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


may be seen now in London, and I should recommend all 
who wish to understand his character to go to the Lyceum, 
though, between ourselves, he strongly disapproves of the 
whole performance. 

I was introduced into the world by an old lady named 
Mrs. O^Reilly. She was a very pleasant old lady, ^ the 
wife of a general, and one of those sociable, friendly, 
talkative people who do much to cheer their neighbors, 
particularly in a deadly-lively provincial place like Mud- 
dleton, where the standard of social intercourse is not very 
high. Mrs. O’Reilly had been in her day a celebrated 
beauty; she was now gray-haired and stout, but still there 
was something impressive about her, and few could resist 
the charm of her manner and the pleasant, easy flow of 
her small talk. Her love of gossip amounted almost to a 
passion, and nothing came amiss to her; she liked to know 
everything about everybody, and in the main 1 think her 
interest was a kindly one, though she found that a little 
bit of scandal, every now and then, added a piquant flavor 
to the homely fare provided by the commonplace life of 
the*Muddletonians. 

I will now, without further preamble, begin the history 
of my life. 

* * ^ 

“ 1 assure you, my dear Lena, Mr. Zaluski is nothing 
less than a Nihilist 

The sound waves set in motion by Mrs. O^Reilly^s words 
were tumultuously heaving in the atmosphere when 1 
sprung into being a young but perfectly formed and most 
promising slander. A delicious odor of tea pervaded the 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLAHDER. 


9 


drawing-room, it was orange-flower pekoe, and Mrs. 
O’Reilly was just handing one of the delicate Crown Derby 
cups to her visitor, Miss Lena Houghton. 

“ What a shocking thing! Do you really mean it?^^ 
exclaimed Miss Houghton. “ Thank you — cream, but no 
sugar; doiiT you know, Mrs. O^Reilly, that it is only Low- 
Church people who take sugar nowadays? J3ut, really, 
now, about Mr. Zaluski? How did you find it out?’^ 

“ My dear, I am an old woman, and I have learned in 
the course of a wandering life to put two and two to- 
gether,^^ said Mrs. O’Reilly. She had somehow managed 
to ignore middle age, and had passed from her position of 
renowned beauty to the position which she now firmly and 
constantly claimed of many years and much experience. 
‘‘ Of course,” she continued, “ like every one else, I was 
glad enough to be friendly and pleasant to Sigismund 
Zaluski; and as to his being a Pole, why, I think it rather 
pleased me than otherwise. You see, my dear, I have 
knocked about the world and mixed with all kinds of peo- 
ple. Still, one must draw the line somewhere, and I con- 
fess- it gave me a very painful shock to find that he had 
such violent antipathies to law and order. When he took 
Ivy Cottage for the summer 1 made the general call at 
once, and before long we had become very intimate with 
him; but, my dear, he’s not what I thought him — not at 
all!” 

“ Well, now, I am delighted to hear you say that,” said 
Lena Houghton, with some excitement in her manner, 
“ for it exactly fits in with what I always felt about him. 
Prom the first I disliked that man, and the way he goes 


10 


THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


on with Gertrude Morley is simply dreadful. If they are 
not engaged they ought to be; that^s all 1 can say.^"* 

“ Engaged, my dear! I trust not,^'’ said Mrs. O’Reilly. 
‘ ‘ I had always hoped for something very different for dear 
Gertrude. Quite between ourselves, you know, my 
nephew John Carew is over head and ears in love with her, 
and they would make a very good pair; don’t you think 
so?” 

“ Well, you see, I like Gertrude to a certain extent,” 
replied Lena Houghton. “But I never raved about her 
as so many people do. Still, I hope she will not be en- 
trapped into marrying Mr. Zaluski; she deserves a better 
fate than that.” 

“ 1 quite agree with you,” said Mrs. O’Reilly, with a 
troubled look. “ And the worst of it is, poor Gertrude is 
a girl who might very likely take up foolish revolutionary 
notions; she needs a strong, wise husband to keep her in 
order and form her opinions. But is it really true that he 
flirts with her? This is the first 1 have heard of it. I 
can’t think how it has escaped my notice.” 

“ Nor 1, for indeed he is up at the Morleys’ pretty 
nearly every day. What with tennis, and music, and rid- 
ing, there is always some excuse for it. I can’t think 
what Gertrude sees in him, he is not even good-looking. ” 

“ There is a certain surface good nature about him,” 
said Mrs. O’Reilly. “ It deceived even me at first. But, 
my dear Lena, mark my words: that man has a fearful 
temper; and I pray Heaven that poor Gertrude may have 
her eyes opened in time. Besides, to think of that little 
gentle, delicate thing marrying a Nihilist! It is too dread- 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


11 


ful; really, quite too dreadful! John would never get 
over it!^^ 

“ The thing I can/t understand is why all the world has 
taken him up so, said Lena Houghton. ‘‘One meets 
him everywhere, yet nobody seems to know anything 
about him. Just because he has taken Ivy Cottage for 
four months, and because he seems to be rich and good- 
natured, every one is ready to run after him. 

“Well, well,^^ said Mrs. O’Reilly, “we all like to be 
neighborly, my dear, and a week ago I should have been 
ready to say nothing but good of him. But now my eyes 
have been opened. 1^11 tell you just how it was. We 
were sitting here, just as you and I are now, at afternoon 
tea; the talk had flagged a little, and for the sake of some- 
thing to say I made some remark about Bulgaria — not 
that I really knew anything about it, you know, for I’m 
no politician; still, I knew it was. a subject that would 
make talk just now. My dear, I assure you I was posi- 
tively frightened. All in a minute his face changed, his 
eyes flashed, he broke into such a torrent of abuse as I 
never heard in my life before. ” 

“ Do you mean that he abused you?’^ 

“ Dear me, no; but Russia and the czar, and tyranny, 
and despotism, and many other things I had never heard 
of. I tried to calm him down and reason with him, but I 
might as well have reasoned with the cockatoo in the win- 
dow. At last he caught himself up quickly in the middle 
of a sentence, strode over to the piano, and began to play 
as he generally does, you know, when he comes here. 
Well, would you believe it, my dear! instead of improvis- 


12 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


ing or playing operatic airs as usual, he began to play a 
stupid little tune which every child was taught years ago, 
of course with variations of his own. Then he turned 
round on the music-stool with the oddest smile I ever saw, 
and said, “ Do you know that air, Mrs. O^Reilly?^^ 

Yes,^^ I said; “ but 1 forget now what it is/^ 

“ It was composed by Festal, one of the victims of Rus- 
>5^an tyranny, said he. “ The executioner did his work 
badly, and Festal had to be strung up twice. In the in- 
terval he was heard t6 mutter, ‘ Stupid country, where 
they donT even know how to hang!^ Then he gave a lit- 
tle forced laugh, got up quickly, wished me good-bye, and 
was gone before 1 could put in a word.'’ 

“What a horrible story to tell in a drawing-room!" 
said Lena Houghton. “ I envy Gertrude less than ever." 

“ Foor girl! What a sad prospect it is for her!" said 
Mrs. O'Reilly with a sigh. “ Of course, my dear, you'll 
not repeat what I have just told you. " 

“ Not for the world!" said Lena Houghton, emphat- 
ically. “ It is perfectly safe with me. " 

The conversation was here abruptly ended, for the page 
threw open the drawing-room door and announced “ Mr. 
Zaluski." 

“ Talk of the angel," murmured Mrs. O'Reilly, with a 
significant smile at her companion. Then skillfully alter- 
ing the expression of her face, she beamed graciously on 
the guest who was ushered into the room, and Lena 
Houghton also prepared to greet him most pleasantly. 

I looked with much interest at Sigismund Zaluski, and 
as 1 looked I partly understood why Miss Houghton had 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


13 


been prejudiced against him at first sight. He had lived 
five years in England, and nothing pleased him more than 
to be taken for an Englishman. He had had his silky 
black hair closely cropped in the very hideous fashion of 
the present day; he wore the ostentatiously high collar 
now in vogue; and he tried to be sedulously English in 
every respect. But in spite of his wonderfully fiuent 
speech and almost perfect accent, there lingered about 
him something which would not harmonize with that ideal 
of an English gentleman which is latent in most minds. 
Something he lacked, something he possessed, which in- 
terfered with the part he desired to play. The something 
lacking showed itself in his ineradicable love of jewelry 
and in a transparent habit of fibbing; the something 
possessed showed itself in his easy grace of movement, his 
delightful readiness to amuse and to be amused, and in a 
certain cleverness and rapidity of idea rarely, if ever, 
found in an Englishman. 

He was a little above the average height and very finely 
built; but there was nothing striking in his aquiline feat- 
ures and dark-gray eyes,, and I think Miss Houghton spoke 
truly when she said that he was “ Not even good-look- 
ing.^^ Still, in spite of this, it was a face which grew upon 
most people, and I felt the least little bit of regret as I 
looked at him, because I knew that I should persistently 
haunt and harass him, and should do all that could be 
done to spoil his life. 

Apparently he had forgotten all about Russia and Bul- 
garia, for he looked radiantly happy. Clearly his thoughts 
were engrossed with his own affairs, which, in other 


14 


THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


words, meant with Gertrude Morley; and though, as I 
have since observed, there are times when a man in love is 
an altogether intolerable sort of being, there are other 
times when he is very much improved by the passion, and 
regards the whole world with a genial kindness which con- 
trasts strangely with his p’^evious cool cynicism. 

“ How delighful and home-like your room always 
looks!’' he exclaimed, taking the cup of tea which Mrs. 
O’Reilly handed to him. “ I am horribly lonely at Ivy 
Cottage. This house is a sort of oasis in the desert. " 

“ Why, you are hardly ever at home, 1 thought,” said’ 
Mrs. O’Reilly, smiling. “ You are the lion of the neigh- 
borhood just now; and I’m sure it is very good of you to 
come in and cheer a lonely old woman. Are you going to 
play me something rather more lively to-day?” 

He laughed. 

“Ah! poor Festal! I had forgotten all about our last 
meeting.” 

“You were very much excited that day,” said Mrs. 
O’Reilly. “ I had no idea that your political notions — ” 

He interrupted her. 

“Ah! no politics to-day, dear Mrs. O’Reilly. Let us 
have nothing but enjoyment and harmony. See, now, I 
will play you something very much more cheerful. ” 

And sitting down to the piano, he played the bridal 
march from “ Lohengrin,” then wandered ofi into an im- 
provised air, and finally treated them to some recollections 
of the “ Mikado.” 

Lena Houghton watched him thoughtfully as she put on 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLAHHER. 


15 


her gloves; he was playing with great spirit, and the words 
of the opera rang in her ears: 

“ For he’s going to marry Yum-yum, Yum-yum, 

And so you had better be dumb, dumb, dumb!” 

I knew well enough that she would not follow this moral 
advice, and I laughed to myself because the whole scene 
was such a hollow mockery. The placid, benevolent-look- 
ing old lady leaning back in her arm-chair; the girl in her 
blue gingham and straw hat preparing to go to the after- 
noon service; the happy lover entering heart and soul into 
Sullivan^s charming music; the pretty room with its Chip- 
pendale furniture, its aesthetic hangings, its bowls of roses; 
and Ihe sound of church bells wafted through the open 
window on the soft summer breeze. 

Yet all the time I lingered there unseen, carrying with 
me all sorts of dread possibilities. I had been introduced 
into the world, and even if Mrs. O’Eeilly had been willing 
to admit to herself that she had broken the ninth com- 
mandment, and had earnestly desired to recall me, all her 
sighs and tears and regrets would have availed nothing; so 
true is the saying, “ Of thy words unspoken thou art mas- 
ter; thy spoken word is master of thee.^^ 

Thank you."" “Thank you."" “How I envy your 
power of playing!"" 

The two ladies seemed to vie with each other in making 
pretty speeches, and Zaluski, who loved music and loved 
giving pleasure, looked really pleased. I am sure it did 
not enter his head that his two companions were not sin- 
cere, or that they did not wish him well. He was think- 


16 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


ing to himself how simple and kindly the Muddleton peo- 
ple were, and how great a contrast this life was to his life 
in London; and he was saying to himself that he had been 
a fool to live a lonely bachelor life till he was nearly thirty, 
and yet congratulating himself that he had done so since 
Gertrude was but nineteen. Undoubtedly, he was seeing 
blissful visions of the future all the time that he replied to 
the pretty speeches, and shook hands with Lena Hough- 
ton, and opened the drawing-room door for her, and took 
out his watch to assure her that she had plenty of time 
and need not hurry to church. 

Poor Zaluski! He looked so kindly and pleasant. 
Though I was only a slander, and might have been sup- 
posed to have no heart at all, 1 did feel sorry for him when 
I thought of the future and of the grief and pain which 
would persistently dog his steps. 


MY SECOND STAGE. 

Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie; 

Truth is the speech of inward purity. 

The Light of Asia. 

In my first stage the reader will perceive that I was a 
comparatively weak and harmless little slander, with 
merely that taint of original sin which was to be expected 
in one of such parentage. But I developed with great 
rapidity; and I believe men of science will tell you that 
this is always the case with low organisms. That, for in- 
stance, while it takes years to develop the man from the 


THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


17 


baby, and months to develop the dog from the puppy, the 
baby monad will grow to maturity in an hour. 

Personally 1 should have preferred to linger in Mrs. 
O’Eeilly^s pleasant drawing-room, for, as 1 said before, 
my victim interested me, and I wanted to observe him 
more closely and hear what he talked about. But 1 re- 
ceived orders to attend even-song at the parish church, 
and to haunt the mind of Lena Houghton. 

As we passed down the High Street the bells rang out 
loud and clear, and they made me feel the same slight 
sense of discomfort that I had felt when I looked at Zalu- 
ski; however, 1 went on, and soon entered the church. It 
was a fine old Gothic building, and the afternoon sunshine 
seemed to flood the whole place; even the white stones in 
the aisle were glorified here and there with gorgeous 
patches of color from the stained-glass windows. But the 
strange stillness and quiet oppressed me, I did not feel 
nearly so much at home as in Mrs. O’Eeilly^s drawing- 
room — to use a terrestrial simile, I felt like a fish out of 
^water. 

For some time, too, I could find no entrance at all into 
the mind of Lena Houghton. Try as 1 would, I could not 
distract her attention or gain the slightest hold upon her, 
and I really believe I should have been altogether baffled, 
had not the rector unconsciously come to my aid. 

All through the prayers and psalms I had fought a des- 
perate fight without gaining a single inch. Then the 
rector walked over to the lecturn, and the moment he 
opened his mouth I knew that my time had come, and 
that there was a very fair chance of victory before me. 


18 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLAISDER. 


Whether this clergyman had a toothache, or a headache, 
or a heavy load on his mind, 1 can not say, but his read- 
ing was more lugubrious than the wind in an equinoctial 
gale. I have since observed that he was only a degree 
worse than many other clerical readers, and that a strange 
and delightfully mistakea^notion seems prevalent that the 
Bible must be read in a dreary and unnatural tone of 
voice, or with a sort of mournful monotony; it is intended 
as a sort of reverence, but I suspect that it often plays into 
the hands of my progenitor, as it most assuredly did in the 
present instance. 

Hardly had the rector announced, “ Here beginneth the 
forty-fourth verse of the sixteenth chapter of the book of 
the Prophet Ezekiel,^’ than a sort of relaxation took place 
in the mind 1 was attacking. Lena Houghton's attention 
could only have been given to the drearily read lesson by a 
very great effort; she was a little lazy and did not make 
the effort, she thought how nice it was to sit down again, 
and then the melancholy voice lulled her into a vague in- 
terval of thoughtless inactivity. 1 promptly seized my op- 
portunity, and in a moment her whole mind was full of 
me. She was an excitable, impressionable sort of girl, and 
when once I had obtained an entrance into her mind I 
found it the easiest thing in the world to dominate her 
thoughts. Though she stood, and sat, and knelt, and 
courtesied, and articulated words, her thoughts were en- 
tirely absorbed in me. I crowded out t^e “ Magnificat 
with a picture of Zaluski and Gertrude Morley. I led her 
through more terrible future possibilities in the second les- 
son than would be required for a three-volume novel. I 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


19 


entirely eclipsed the collects with reflections on unhappy 
marriages; took her off vid Russia and Nihilism in the 
state prayers, and by the time we arrived at St. Chrysos- 
tom had become so powerful that I had worked her mind 
into exactly the condition I desired. 

The congregation rose. Lena Houghton, still domi- 
nated by me, knelt longer than the rest, but at last she 
got up and walked down the aisle, and I felt a great sense 
of relief and satisfaction. We were out in the open air 
once more, and I had triumphed; I was quite sure that 
she would tell the first person she met. for as I have said 
before, she was entirely taken up with me, and to have 
kept me to herself would have required far more strength 
and unselfishness than she at that moment possessed. She 
walked slowly through the church-yard, feeling much 
pleased to see that the curate had just left the vestry door, 
and that in a few moments their paths must converge. 

Mr. Blackthorne had only been ordained three or four 
years, and was a little younger, and much less experienced 
in the ways of the world, than Sigismund Zaluski. He 
was a good, well-meaning fellow, a little narrow, a little 
prejudiced, a little spoiled by the devotion of the district 
visitors and Sunday-school teachers; but he was honest 
and energetic, and as a worker among the poor few could 
have equaled him. He seemed to fancy, however, that 
with the poor his work ended, and he was not always so 
wise as he might have^^Dfeen in Muddleton society. 

“Good-afternoon, Miss Houghton,’^ he exclaimed. 
“ Do you happen to know if your brother is at home? I 
want just to speak to him about the choir treat. 


20 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP A SLANDER. 


“ Oh, he is sure to be in by this time,^^ said Lena. 

And they walked home together. 

“I am so glad to have this chance of speaking to you/^ 
she began, rather nervously. “ I wanted particularly to 
ask your advice. ^ ^ 

Mr. Blackthorne, being human and young, was not un- 
naturally flattered by this remark. True, he was becom- 
ing well accustomed to this sort of thing, since the ladies 
of Muddleton were far more fond of seeking advice from 
the young and good-looking curate than from the elderly 
and experienced rector. They said it was because Mr. 
Blackthorne was so much more sympathetic, and under- 
stood the difficulties of the day so much better; but I 
think they unconsciously deceived themselves, for the 
rector was one of a thousand, and the curate, though he 
had in him the makings of a fine man, was as yet alto- 
gether crude and young. 

“Was it about anything in your district he asked, 
devoutly hoping that she was not going to propound some 
difficult question about the origin of evil, or any other ob- 
scure subject. For though he liked the honor of being 
consulted, he did not always like the trouble it involved, 
and he remembered with a shudder that Miss Houghton 
had once asked him his opinion about the “ Ethical Con- 
cept of the Good.^^ 

“ It was only that 1 was so troubled about something 
Mrs. O’Reilly has just told me,” said Lena Houghton. 
“ You won’t tell any one that I told you?” 

“ On no account,” said the curate, warmly. 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLAN'DER. 


21 


“ Well, you know Mr. Zaluski, and how the Morleys 
have taken him up?^’ 

“ Every one has taken him up,^^ said the curate, with 
the least little touch of resentment in his tone. “ I knew 
that the Morleys were his special friends; I imagine that 
he admires Miss Morley.^^ 

“ Yes, every one thinks they are either engaged or on 
the brink of it. And oh! Mr. Blackthorne, can^t you or 
somebody put a stop to it, for it seems such a dreadful fate 
for poor Gertrude 

The curate looked startled. 

“ Why, 1 donT profess to like Mr. Zaluski,’^ he said. 
“ But I don’t know anything exactly against him.” 

“ But I do. Mrs. O’Reilly has just been telling me.” 

‘‘What did she tell you?” he- asked, with some curi- 
osity. 

“ Why, she has found out that he is really a Nihilist — 
just think of a Nihilist going about loose like this, and 
playing tennis at the rectory and all the good houses! 
And not only that, but she sayB he is altogether a danger- 
ous, unprincipled man with a dreadful temper. You can’t 
think how unhappy she is about poor Gertrude, and so am 
I, for we were at school together and have always been 
friends.” 

“ I am very sorry to hear about it,” said Mr. Black- 
thorne, “ but 1 don’t see that anything can be done. 
You see; one does not like to interfere in these sort of 
things. It seems officious rather, and meddlesome.” 

“ Yes, that is the worst of it,” she replied, with a sigh. 
“ 1 suppose we can do nothing. Still, it has been a great 


22 


T^E AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


relief just to tell you about it and get it off my mind. I 
suppose we can only hope that something may put a stop 
to it all; we must leave it to chance/^ 

This sentiment amused me not a little. Leave it to 
chance indeed! Had she not caused me to grow stronger 
and larger by every word she uttered ? And had not the 
conversation revealed to me Mr. Blackthorne's one vul- 
nerable part? 1 knew well enough that I should be able 
to dominate his thoughts as I had done hers. Finding me 
burdensome, she had passed me on to somebody else with 
additions that vastly increased my working powers, and 
then she talked of leaving it to chance! The way in which 
mortals practice pious frauds on themselves is really de- 
lightful! And yet Lena Houghton was a good sort of girl, 
and had from her childhood repeated the catechism words 
which proclaim that “ My duty to my neighbor is to love 
him as myself. ... To keep my tongue from evil- 
speaking, lying, and slandering. What is more, she took 
great pains to teach these words to a big class of Sunday- 
school children, and went, rain or shine, to spend two 
hours each Sunday in a stuffy school-room for that pur- 
pose. It was strange that she should be so ready to be- 
lieve evil of her neighbor, and so eager to spread the story. 
But my progenitor is clever, and doubtless knows very, well 
whom to select as his tools. 

By this time they had reached a comfortable-looking, 
red-brick house with .white stone facings, and in the dis- 
cussion of the arrangements for the choir treat I was en- 
tirely forgotten. 


THE AUTOBlOGRArHY OF A SLANDER. 


23 


MY THIRD STAGE, 

Alas! such is our weakness, that we often more readily believe 
and speak of another that which is evil than that which is good. 
But perfect men do nol. easily give credit to every report; because 
they know man’s weakness, which is very prone to evil, and very 
subject to fail in words. — Thomas 1 Kempis. 

All through that evening, and through the first part of 
the succeeding day, I was crowded out of the curate’s mind 
by a host of thoughts with which I had nothing in com- 
mon; and though 1 hovered about him as he taught in the 
school, and visited several sick people, and argued with a 
habitual drunkard, and worked at his Sunday sermon, a 
Power, which I felt but did not understand, baffled all my 
attempts to gain an entrance and attract his notice. 1 
made a desperate attack on him after lunch as he sat 
smoking and enjoying a well-earned rest, but it was of no 
avail. 1 followed him to a large garden-party later on, 
but to my great annoyance he went about talking to every 
one in the pleasantest way imaginable, though I perceived 
that he was longing to play tennis instead. 

At length, however, my opportunity came. Mr. Black- 
thorne was talking to the lady of the house, Mrs. Courte- 
nay, when she suddenly exclaimed: 

Ah, here is Mr. Zaluski just arriving. I began to be 
afraid that he had forgotten the day, and he is always such 
an acquisition. How do you do, Mr. Zaluski?” she said, 
greeting my victim warmly as he stepped on to the ter- 


24 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


race. So glad you were able to come. You know Mr. 
Blackthorne, I think?^^ 

Zaluski greeted the curate pleasantly, and his dark eyes 
lighted up with a gleam of amusement. 

“ Oh, we are great friends, he said, laughingly. 
‘‘ Only, you know, I sometimes shock him a little — Just a 
very little. 

“ That is very unkind of you, I am sure,^’ said Mrs. 
Courtenay, smiling. 

“ No, not at all,^^ said Zaluski, with the audacity of a 
privileged being. “It is Just my little amusement, very 
harmless, very — what you call innocent. Mr. Blackthorue 
can not make up his mind about me. One day I appear 
to him to be Catholic, the next Comtist, the next Ortho- 
dox Greek, the next a convert to the Anglican com- 
munion. I am a mystery, you see! And mysteries are as 
indispensable in life as in a romance.^' 

He laughed. Mrs. Courtenay laughed too, and a little 
friendly banter was carried on between them, while the 
curate stood by feeling rather out of it. 

I drew nearer to him, perceiving that my prospects bid 
fair to improve. For very few people can feel out of it 
without drifting into a self-regarding mood, and then they 
are the easiest prey imaginable. Undoubtedly a man like 
Zaluski, with his easy nonchalance, his knowledge of the 
world, his genuine good nature, and the background of 
sterling qualities which came upon you as a surprise be- 
cause he loved to make himself seem a mere idler, was apt 
to eclipse an ordinary mortal like James Blackthorne. 
The curate perceived this and did not like to be eclipsed — 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


25 


as a matter of fact, nobody does. It seemed to him a lit- 
tle unfair that he, who had hitherto been made much of, 
should be called to play second fiddle to this rich Polisli 
fellow who had never done anything for Muddle ton or the 
neighborhood. And then, too, Sigismund Zaluski had a 
way of poking fun at him which he resented, and would 
not take in good part. 

Something of this began to stir in his mind; and he cor- 
dially hated the Pole when Jim Courtenay, who arranged 
the tennis, came up and asked him to play in the next set, 
passing the curate by altogether. 

Then I found no difficulty at all in taking possession of 
him; indeed, he was delighted to have me brought back to 
his memory, he positively gloated over me, and I grew 
apace. 

Zaluski, in the seventh heaven of happiness, was playing 
with Gertrude Morley, and his play was so good and so 
graceful that every one was watching it with pleasure. 
His partner, too, played well; she was a pretty, fair- 
haired girl, with soft gray eyes, like the eyes of a dove; 
she wore a white tennis dress and a white sailor hat, and 
at her throat she had fastened a cluster of those beautiful 
orange-colored roses known by the prosaic name of “ Will- 
iam Allan Eichardson.^^ 

If Mr. Blackthorne grew angry as he watched Sigis- 
mund Zaluski, he grew doubly angry as he watched Ger- 
trude Morley. He said to himself that it was intolerable 
that such a girl should fall a prey to a vain, shallow, un- 
principled foreigner, and in a few minutes he had painted 


26 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


such a dark picture of poor Sigismund tliat my strength 
increased tenfold. 

“ Mr. Blackthorne/^ said Mrs. Courtenay, “ would you 
take Mrs. Milton-Cleave to have an ice?’^ 

Now Mrs. Milton Cleave had always been one of the 
curate^s great friends. She was a very pleasant, talkative 
woman of six-and -thirty, and a general favorite. Her 
popularity was well deserved, for she was always ready to 
do a kind action, and often went out of her way to help 
people who had not the slightest claim upon her. There 
was, however, no repose about Mrs. Milton-Cleave, and an 
acute observer would have discovered that her universal 
readiness to help w^ caused to some extent by her good 
heart, but in a very large degree by her restless and over- 
active brain. Her sphere was scarcely large enough for 
her, she would have made an excellent head of an orphan 
asylum or manager of some large institution, but her 
quiet country life offered far too narrow a field for her 
energy. 

“ It is really quite a treat to watch Mr. Zaluski^s play,^’ 
she remarked, as they walked to the refreshment tent at 
the other end of the lawn. “ Certainly foreigners know 
how to move much better than we do; our best players 
look awkward beside them.-’^ 

“ Do you think so?’^ said Mr. Blackthorne. “ I am 
afraid I am full of prejudice, and consider that no one can 
equal a true-born Briton. 

“ And 1 quite agree with you in the main,^^ said Mrs. 
Milton-Cleave. “ Though 1 confess that it is rather re- 
freshing to have a little variety. 


TIJE A L T01310aiiAPH y OF A SLANDER. 


27 


The curate was silent, but his silence merely covered his 
absorption in me, and I began to exercise a faint influence 
through his mind on the mind of his companion. This 
caused her at length to say: 

“ 1 doiiT think you quite like Mr. Zaluski. Do you 
know much about him?^’ 

have met him several times this summer,^^ said the 
curate, in the tone of one who could have said much more 
if he would. 

The less satisfying his replies, the more Mrs. Milton- 
Cleave^s curiosity grew. 

“Now, tell me candidly,’^ she said at length. “Is 
there not some mystery about our new neighbor? Is he 
quite what he seems to be?’^ 

“ I fear he is not,^^ said Mr. Blackthorne, making the 
admission in a tone of reluctance, though, to tell the 
truth, he had been longing to pass me on for the last fi.ve 
minutes. 

“ You mean that he is fast?^^ 

“ Worse than that,^^ said James Blackthorne, lowering 
his voice as they walked down one of the shady garden 
paths. “ He is a dangerous, unprincipled fellow, and into 
the bargain an avowed Nihilist. All that is involved in 
that word you perhaps scarcely realize.^’ 

“ Indeed I do,^^ she exclaimed with a shocked expres- 
sion. “ I have just been reading a review of that book of 
Sfcepniak. Their social and religious views are terrible; 
free love, atheism, everything that could bring ruin on the 
human race. Is he indeed a Nihilist?^^ 

Mr. Blackthorne^s conscience gave him a sharp prick. 


28 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


for he knew that he ought not to have passed me on. He 
tried to pacify it with the excuse that he had only promised 
not to tell that Miss Houghton had been his informant. 

“I assure you/^ he said, impressively, ‘‘it is only too 
true. I know it on the best authority.'’^ 

And here I can not help remarking that it has always 
seemed to me strange that even experienced women of the 
world, like Mrs. Milton- Cleave, can be so easily hood- 
winked by that vague nonentity, “The Best Authority.^’ 
I am inclined to think that were I a human being 1 should 
retort with an expressive motion of the finger and thumb, 
“ Oh, you know it on the best authority, do you? Then 
that for your story 

However, I thrived wonderfully on the best authority, 
and it would be ungrateful of me to speak evil of that 
powerful though imaginary being. 

At right angles with the garden-walk down which the 
two were pacing there was another wide pathway, bordered 
by high, closely clipped shrubs. Down this paced a very 
different couple. Mrs. Milton-Oleave caught sight of 
them, and so did the curate. Mrs. Milton-Oleave sighed. 

“1 am afraid he is running after Gertrude Morley! 
Poor girl! I hope she will not be deluded into encour- 
aging him. 

And then they made just the same little set remarks 
about the desirability of stopping so dangerous an ac- 
quaintance, and the impossibility of interfering with otlrer 
people ^s affairs, and the sad necessity of standing by with 
folded hands. I laughed so much over their hollow little 
phrases that at last I was fain to beat a retreat, and, 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 29 

j)rompted by curiosity to know a little of the truth, I fol- 
lowed SigisDiund and Gertrude down the broad grassy 
pathway. 

I knew of course a good deal of Zaluski^s character, be- 
cause my own existence and growth pointed out what he 
was not. Still, to study a man by a process of negation is 
tedious, and though I knew that he was not a Nihilist, or 
a free-lover, or an atheist, or an unprincipled fellow with 
a dangerous temper, yet I was curious to see him as he 
really was. 

“ If you only knew how happy you had made me!^^ he 
was saying. And indeed, as far as happiness went, there 
was not much to choose between them, I fancy; for Ger- 
trude Morley looked radiant, and in her dove-like eyes 
there was the reflection of the love which flashed in his. 

“ You must talk to my mother about it,'’^ she said, 
after a minute^’s silence. “You see, 1 am still under age, 
and she and Uncle Henry, my guardian, must consent be- 
fore we are actually betrothed!*^ 

“ I will see them at once,^^ said Zaluski, eagerly. 

“ You could see my mother,^^ she replied. “ But Un- 
cle Henry is still in Sweden and will not be in town for 
another week. ” 

“ Must we really wait so long?’' sighed Sigismund, im- 
patiently. 

She laughed at him gently. 

“ A whole week! But then we are sure of each other. ^ 
I do not think we ought to grumble. " 

“ But perhaps they may think that a merchant is no 
fitting match for you," he suggested. “ I am nothing 


30 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


but a plain merchant, and my people have been in the 
same business for four generations. As far as wealth goes 
I might perhaps satisfy your people, but for the rest I am 
but a prosaic fellow, with neither noble blood, or the brain 
of a genius, nor anything out of the common. 

‘ ‘ It will be enough for my mother that we love each 
other, she said, shyly. 

“ And your uncle 

‘‘ It will be enough for him that you are upright and 
honorable— enough that you are yourself, Sigismund.^^ 

They were sitting now in a little sheltered recess clipped 
out of the yew-trees. When that softly spoken “ Sigis- 
mund fell from her lips, Zaluski caught her in his arms 
and kissed her again and again. 

“ I have led such a lonely life,^^ he said, after a few 
minutes, during which their talk had baffled my compre- 
hension. ‘‘ All my people died while I was still a boy.^^ 
Then who brought you up?’’ she inquired. 

‘‘ An uncle of mine, the head of our firm in St. Peters- 
burg. He was very good to me, but he had children of 
his own, and of course I could not be to him as one of 
them. I have had many friends and much kindness 
shown to me, but love! none till to-day.” 

And then again they fell into the talk which I could not 
fathom. And so I left them in their brief happiness, for 
my time of idleness was over, and I was ordered to attend 
Mrs. Milton-Oleave without a moment’s delay. 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


31 


MY FOURTH STAGE, 

Oh, the little more, and how ii\uch it is! 

R. Browning. 

Mrs. Milton-Cleave had one weakness — she was 
possessed by an inordinate desire for influence. This 
made her always eagerly anxious to be interesting both in 
her conversation and in her letters, and to this end she ex- 
erted herself with unwearying activity. She liked influ- 
encing Mr. Blackthorne, and spared no pains on him that 
afternoon ; and indeed the curate was a good deal flattered 
by her friendship, and considered her one of the most 
clever and charming women he had ever met. 

Sigismund and Gertrude returned to the ordinary world 
just as Mrs. Milton-Cleave was saying good-bye to the 
hostess. She glanced at them searchingly. 

“ Good-bye, Gertrude, she said, a little coldly. “ Did 
you win at tennis?^^ 

“ Indeed we did,^’ said Gertrude, smiling. “We came 
off with flying colors. It was a love set. 

The girl was looking more beauitful than ever, and 
there was a tell-tale color in her cheeks and an unusual 
light in her soft gray eyes. As for Zaluski, he was so evi- 
dently in love, and had the audacity to look so supremely 
happy, that Mrs. Milton-Cleave was more than ever im- 
pressed with the gravity of the situation. The curate 
handed her into her victoria, and she drove home through 


32 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


the sheltered lanes musing sadly over the story she had 
heard, and wondering what Gertrude^s future would be. 
When she reached home, however, the affair was driven 
from her thoughts by her children, of whom she was de- 
votedly fond. They came running to meet her, frisking 
like so many kittens round her as she went upstairs to her 
room, and begging to stay with her while she dressed for 
dinner. During dinner she was engrossed with her hus- 
band; but afterward, when she was alone in the drawing- 
room, I found my opportunity for working on her restless 
mind. 

‘ ‘ Dear me, she exclaimed, throwing aside the news- 
paper she had just taken up, “ I ought to write to Mrs. 
Selldon at Dulminster about that G. F. S. girl!’^ 

As a matter of fact, she ought not to have written then, 
the letter might well have waited till the morning, and she 
was overtired and needed rest. But 1 was glad to see her 
take up her pen, for I knew I should come in most con- 
veniently to fill up the second side of the sheet. 

Before long Jane Stiggins, the member who had mi- 
grated from Muddleton to Dulminster, had been duly re- 
ported, wound up, and made over to the archdeacon^s 
wife. Then the tired hand paused. What more could 
she say to her friend? 

“We are leading our usual quiet life here,’^ she wrote, 
“ with the ordinary round of tennis-parties and picnics to 
enliven us. The children have all been wonderfully well, 
and I think you will see a great improvement in your god- 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


33 


daughter when you next come to stay with us. “Oh, 
dear!’^ sighed Mrs. Milton-Cleave, “ how dull and stupid 
I am to-night! I can^t think of a single thing to say.^^ 
Then at length I flashed into her mind, and with a sigh of 
relief and a little rising flush of excitement she went on 
much, more rapidly. 

“It is such a comfort to be quite at rest about them, 
and to see them all looking so well. But I suppose one 
can never be without some cause of worry, and just now I 
am very unhappy about that nice girl Gertrude Morley 
whom you admired so much when you were last here. 
The whole neighborhood has been dominated this year by 
a young Polish merchant named Sigismund Zaluski, who 
is very clever and musical and knows well how to win 
popularity. He has taken Ivy Cottage for four months, 
and is, I fear, doing great mischief. The Morleys are his 
special friends, and I greatly fear he is making love to 
Gertrude. Now I know privately, on the very best au- 
thority, that although he has so completely deceived every 
one and has managed so cleverly to pose as a respectable 
man, that Mr. Zaluski is really a Nihilist, a free-lover, an 
atheist, and altogether a most unprincipled man. He is 
“very clever, and speaks English most fluently, indeed, he 
has lived in London since the spring of 1881 — he told me 
so himself. I can not help fancying that he must have 
been concerned in the assassination of the late czar, which 
you will remember took place in that year early in March. 
It is terrible to think of the poor Morleys entering blind- 
fold on such an undesirable connection; but, at the same 

time, I really do not feel that I can say anything about it. 

2 


84 


THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY OP A SLAKDER. 


Excuse this hurried note, dear Charlotte, and with love to 
yourself and kindest remembrances to the archdeacon, 

“ Believe me, very affectionately yours, 

“■ Georgika Miltopt-Cleave. 

“ P.S. — It may perhaps be as well not to mention this 
affair about Gertrude Morley and Mr. Zaluski. They are 
not yet engaged, as far as 1 know^, and I sincerely trust it 
may prove to be a mere flirtation. 

1 had now grown to such enormous dimensions that any 
one who had known me in my infancy would scarcely have 
recognized me, while naturally the more I grew the more 
powerful 1 became, and the more capable both of impress- 
ing the minds which received me and of injuring Zaluski. 
Poor Zaluski, who was so foolishly, thoughtlessly happy. 
He little dreamed of the fate that awaited him! His 
whole world was bright and full of promise; each hour of 
love seemed to improve him, to deepen his whole char- 
acter, to tone down his rather flippant manner, to awaken 
for him new and hitherto unthought- of realities. 

But while he basked in his new happiness I traveled in 
my close, stuffy envelope to Dulminster, and after hav- 
ing been tossed in and out of bags, shuffled, stamped, 
thumped, tied up, and generally shaken about, I arrived 
one morning at Dulminster Archdeaconry, and was laid on 
the breakfast-table among other appetizing things to greet 
Mrs. Selldon when she came down-stairs. 


THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF A SLANDEB. 


35 


MY FIFTH STAGE, 

Also it is wise not to believe everything you hear, nor immediate- 
ly to carr}’’ to the ears of others what you have either heard or be- 
lieved.— Thomas 1 Kempis. 

Though I was read in silence at the breakfast-table and 
not passed on to the archdeacon, I lay dormant in Mrs. 
Selldon^s mind all day, and came to her aid that night 
when she was at her wits^ end for something to talk about. 

Mrs. Selldon, though a most worthy and estimable per- 
son, was of a phlegmatic temperament; her sympathies 
were not easily aroused, her mind was lazy and torpid, in 
conversation she was unutterably dull. There were times 
when she was painfully conscious of this, and would have 
given much for the ceaseless flow of words which fell from 
the lips of her friend Mrs. Milton-Cleave. And that even- 
ing after my arrival chanced to be one of these occasions, 
for there was a dinner-party at the archdeaconry, given in 
honor of a well-known author who was spending a few 
days in the neighborhood. 

“ I wish you could have Mr. Shrewsbury at your end of 
the table, Thomas, Mrs. Selldon had remarked to her 
husband with a sigh, as she was arranging the guests on 
paper that afternoon. 

Oh, he must certainly take you in, my dear,^^ said the 
archdeacon. And he seems a very clever, well-read 
man; I am sure you will find him easy to talk to.^^ 

Poor Mrs. Selldon thought that she would rather have 
had some one who was neither clever nor well read. But 


36 


THE AUTOBIOGKAPHT OF A SLANDER. 


there was no help for her, and, whether she would or not, 
she had to go in to dinner with the literary lion. 

Mr. Mark Shrewsbury was a novelist of great ability. 
Some twenty years before, he had been called to the bar, 
and, conscious , of real talent, had been greatly imbittered 
by the impossibility of getting on in his profession. At 
length, in disgust, he gave up all hopes of success and de- 
voted himself instead to literature. In this field he won 
the recognition for which he craved; his books were read 
everywhere, his name became famous, his income steadily 
increased, and he had the pleasant consciousness that he 
had found his vocation. Still, in spite of his success, he 
could not forget the bitter years of failure and disappoint- 
ment which had gone before, and though his novels were 
full of genius they were pervaded by an under-tone of sar- 
casm, so that people after reading them were more ready 
than before to take cynical views of life. 

He was one of those men whose quiet, impassive faces 
reveal scarcely anything of their character. He was 
neither tall nor short, neither dark nor fair, neither hand- 
some nor the reverse; in fact his personality was not in the 
least impressive; while, like most true artists, he observed 
all things so quietly that you rarely discovered that he was 
observing at all. 

“ Dear me!"" people would say, “ is Mark Shrewsbury 
really here? Which is he? I don"t see any one at all like 
my idea of a novelist. "" 

“ There he is — that man in spectacles,"" would be the 
reply. 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


37 


And really the spectacles were the only noteworthy 
thing about him. 

Mrs. Selldon, who had seen several authors and author- 
esses in her time, and knew that they were as a rule most 
ordinary, humdrum kind of people, was quite prepared 
for her fate. She remembered her astonishment as a girl 
when, having laughed and cried at the play, and taken the 
chief actor as her ideal hero, she had had him pointed out 
to her one day in Kegent Street, and found him to be a 
most commonplace-looking man, the very last person one 
would have supposed capable of stirring the hearts of a 
great audience. 

Meanwhile dinner progressed, and Mrs. Selldon talked 
to an empty-headed but loquacious man on her left, and 
racked her brains for something to say to the alarmingly 
silent author on her right. She remembered heping that 
Charles Dickens would often sit silent through the whole 
of dinner, observing quietly those about him, but that at 
dessert he would suddenly come to life and keep the whole 
table in roars of laughter. She feared that Mr. Shrews- 
bury meant to imitate the great novelist in the first partic- 
ular, but was scarcely likely to follow his example in the 
last. At length she asked him what he thought of the 
cathedral, and a few tepid remarks followed. 

“How unutterably this good lady bores me!” thought 
the author. 

“ How odd it is that his characters talk so well in his 
books, and that he is such a stick!” thought Mrs. Sell- 
don. 


38 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


“ I suppose it^s the effect of cathedral- town atmos- 
phere/^ reflected the author. 

“ I suppose he is eaten up with conceit and won’t 
trouble himself to talk to me/’ thought the hostess. 

By the time the flsh had been removed they had arrived 
at a state of mutual contempt. Mindful of the reputation 
they had to keep up, however, they exerted themselves a 
little more while the entrees went round. 

“ Seldom reads, I should fancy, and never thinks!” re- 
flected the author, glancing at Mrs. Selldon’s placid un- 
intellectual face. “ What on earth can I say to her?” 

“ Very unpractical, I am sure,” reflected Mrs. Selldon. 
“ The sort of man who lives in a world of his own, and 
only lays down his pen to take up a book. What subject 
shall I start?” 

“ What delightful weather we have been having the last 
few days!” observed the author. “ Eeal, genuine sum- 
mer weather at last. ” The same remark had been trem- 
bling on Mrs. Selldon’s lips. She assented with great 
cheerfulness and alacrity; and over that invaluable topic 
which is always so safe and so congenial, and so ready to 
hand, they grew quite friendly, and the conversation for 
fully flve minutes was animated. 

An interval of thought followed. 

“ How wearisome is society!” reflected Mrs. Selldon. 
“ It is hard that we must spend so much money in giving 
dinners and have so much trouble for so little enjoyment.” 

“One pays dearly for fame,” reflected the author. 
“ What a confounded nuisance it is to waste all this time 
when there are the last proofs of ‘ What Caste?’ to be 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


39 


done for the nine-o’clock post to-morrow morning! Good- 
ness knows what time I shall get to bed to-night!” 

Then Mrs. Selldon thought regretfully of the comforta- 
ble easy-chair that she usually enjoyed after dinner, and 
the ten minutes’ nap and the congenial needle-work. And 
Mark Shrewsbury thought of his chambers in Pump 
Court, and longed for his type-writer, and his books, and 
his swivel-chair, and his favorite meerschaum. 

“ I should be less afraid to talk if there were not always 
the horrible idea that he may take down what one says,” 
thought Mrs. Selldon. 

‘‘ I should be less bored if she would only be her natural 
self,” reflected the author. “ And would not talk prim 
platitudes.” (This was hard, for he had talked nothing 
else himself.) “ Does she think she is so interesting that 
I am likely to study her for my next book?” 

“ Have you been abroad this summer?” inquired Mrs. 
Selldon, making another spasmodic attempt at conversa- 
tion. 

“ No; 1 detest traveling,” replied Mark Shrewsbury. 
“When I need change I Just settle down in some quiet 
country district for a few months — somewhere near Wind- 
sor, or Reigate, or Muddleton. There is nothing to my 
mind like our English scenery. ” 

“ Oh, do you know Muddleton?” exclaimed Mrs. Sell- 
don. “Is it not a charming little place? 1 often stay in 
the neighborhood with the Milton-Cleaves. ” 

“ 1 know Milton-Cleave well,” said the author. “ A 
capital fellow, quite the typical country gentleman.” 

“Is he not?” said Mrs. Selldon, much relieved to have 


40 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


found this subject in common. “ His wife is a great friend 
of mine; she is full of life and energy, and does an im- 
mense amount of good. Did you say you had stayed with 
them?^^ 

‘‘No; but last year I took a house in that neighborhood 
for a few months; a most charming little place it was, just 
fit for a lonely bachelor. I dare say you remember it — 
Ivy Cottage, on the Newton Eoad.^^ 

“ Did you stay there? Now what a curious coincidence! 
Only this morning^ I heard from Mrs. Milton -Cleave that 
Ivy Cottage has been taken this summer by a Mr. Sigis- 
mund Zaluski, a Polish merchant, who is doing untold 
harm in the neighborhood. He is a very clever, unscrupu- 
lous man, and has managed to take in almost every one.’’ 

Why, what is he? A swindler? Or a burglar in dis- 
guise, like the ‘ House on the Marsh ’ fellow?” asked the 
author, with a little twinkle of amusement in his face. 

“ Oh, much worse than that,” said Mrs. Selldon, lower- 
ing her voice. “ I assure you, Mr. Shrewsbury, you would 
hardly credit the story if I were to tell it you, it is really 
stranger than fiction.” Mark Shrewsbury pricked up his 
ears, he no longer felt bored, he began to think that, after 
all, there might be some compensation for this wearisome 
dinner-party. He was always glad to seize upon material 
for future plots, and somehow the notion of a mysterious 
Pole suddenly making his appearance in that quiet country 
neighborhood and winning undeserved popularity rather 
took his fancy. He thought he might make something of 
it. However, he knew human nature too well to ask a 
direct question. 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


41 


“ I am sorry to hear that/ ^ he said, becoming all at 
once quite sympathetic and approachable. “ I don^t like 
the thought of those simple, unsophisticated people being 
hoodwinked by a scoundrel. 

“ No; is it not sad?^^ said Mrs. Selldon. “ Such pleas- 
ant hospitable people as they are! Do you remember the 
Morleys?^' 

■ ‘‘ Oh, yes! There was a pretty daughter who played 
tennis well. 

“ Quite so — Gertrude Morley. Well, would you believe 
it, this miserable fortune-hunter is actually either engaged 
to her or on the eve of being engaged ! Poor Mrs. Milton- 
Cleave is so unhappy about it, for she knows, on the best 
authority, that Mr. Zaluski is unfit to enter a respectable 
house. 

“ Perhaps he is really some escaped criminal suggest- 
ed Mr. Shrewsbury, tentatively. 

Mrs. Selldon hesitated. Then under the cover of the 
general roar of conversation, she said in a low voice : 

“ You have guessed quite rightly. He is one of the 
Nihilists who were concerned in the assassination of the 
late czar.’^ 

“ You donT say so!'" exclaimed Mark Shrewsbury, 
much startled. “ Is it possible?" 

“Indeed, it is only too true," said Mrs. Selldon. “I 
heard it only the other morning, and on the very best au- 
thority. Poor Gertrude Morley! My heart bleeds for 
her." 

Now I can't help observing here that this must have 


42 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


been the merest figure of speech, for just then there was a 
comfortable little glow of satisfaction about Mrs. Selldon^s 
heart. She was so delighted to have “got on well/^ as 
she expressed it, with the literary lion, and by this time 
dessert was on the table, and soon the tedious ceremony 
would be happily over. 

“ But how did he escape?’^ asked Mark Shrewsbury, 
still with the thought of “ copy in his mind. 

“ 1 don’t know the details,” said Mrs. Selldon. “ Prob- 
ably they are only known to himself. But he managed to 
escape somehow in the month of March, 1881, and to 
reach England safely. I fear it is only too often the 
case in this world — wickedness is apt to be successful.” 

“ To flourish like a green bay-tree,” said Mark Shrews- 
bury, congratulating himself on the aptness of the quota- 
tion, and its suitability to the archediaconal dinner-table. 
“It is the strangest story I have heard for a long time.” 
Just then there was a pause in the general conversation, 
and Mrs. Selldon took advantage of it to make the sign 
for rising, so that no more passed with regard to Zaluski. 

Shrewsbury, flattering himself that he had left a good 
impression by his last remark, thought better not to efface 
it later in the evening by any other conversation with his 
hostess. But in the small hours of the night, when he had 
finished his bundle of proofs, he took up his note-book, 
and, strangling his yawns, made two or three brief, pithy 
notes of the story Mrs. Selldon had told him, adding a 
further development which occurred to him, and wonder- 
ing to himself whether “ Like a Green Bay Tree ” would 
be a selling title. 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


43 


After this he went to bed, and slept the sleep of the 
just, or the unbroken sleep which goes by that name. 


MY SIXTH STAGE, 

But whispering tongues can poison truth. 

Coleridge. 

London in early September is a somewhat trying place. 
Mark Shrewsbury found it less pleasing in reality than in 
his visions during the dinner-party at Dulminster. True, 
his chambers were comfortable, and his type- writer was as 
invaluable a machine as ever, and his novel was drawing 
to a successful conclusion; 'but though all these things 
were calculated to cheer him, he was nevertheless de- 
pressed. Town was dull, the heat was trying, and he had 
never in his life found it so difficult to settle down to 
work. He began to agree with the preacher, that “ of 
making many books there is no end,^^ and that, in spite of 
his favorite “ Eemington's perfected No. novel-writ- 
ing was a weariness to the flesh. Soon he drifted into a 
sort of vague idleness, which was not a good, honest holi- 
day, but just a lazy waste of time and brains. I was 
pleased to observe this, and was not slow to take advan- 
tage of it. Had he stayed in Pump Court he might have 
forgotten me altogether in his work, but in the soft lux- 
ury of his club life I found that I had a very fair chance 
of being passed on to some one else. 

One hot afternoon, on waking from a comfortable nap 
in the depths of an arm-chair at the club, Shrewsbury was 
greeted by one of his friends. 


44 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


“ I thought you were in Switzerland, old fellow!^’ he 
exclaimed, yawning and stretching himself. 

“ Came back yesterday — awfully bad season — confound- 
edly dull,"^ returned the other. “ Where have you been?'^ 

Down with Warren near Dulminster. Deathly dull 
hole.^’ 

Do for your next novel. Eh?^^ said the other, with a 
laugh. 

Mark Shrewsbury smiled good-naturedly. 

Talking of novels,^ ^ he observed, with another yawn, 
“ I heard such a story down there 

“ Did you? Let's hear it. A nice little scandal would 
do instead of a pick-me-up. " 

“ It's not a scandal. Don't raise your expectations. 
It's the story of a successful scoundrel." 

And then I came out again in full vigor; nay, with vast- 
ly increased powers; for though Mark Shrewsbury did not 
add very much to me or alter my appearance, yet his 
graphic words made me much more impressive than I had 
been under the management of Mrs. Selldon. 

“H'm! that's a queer story," said the limp-looking 
young man from Switzerland. I say, have a game of 
billiards, will you?' ’ 

Shrewsbury, with a prodigious yawn, dragged himself 
up out of his chair, and the two went off together. As 
they left the room the only other man present looked up 
from his newspaper, following them with his eyes. 

“ Shrewsbury the novelist," he thought to himself. 
‘‘ A sterling fellow! And he heard it from an archdea- 
con's wife. Confound it all! the thing must be true then. 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLAHDER. 


45 


1^11 write and make full inquiries about this Zaluski before 
consenting to the engagement. 

And, being a prompt, business-like man, Gertrude Mor- 
ley's uncle sat down and wrote the following letter to a 
Russian friend of his who lived at St. Petersburg, and who 
might very likely be able to give some account of Zaluski: 

“ Dear Leohoff, — Some very queer stories are afloat 
about a young Polish merchant, by name Sigismund 
Zaluski, the head of the London branch of the firm of 
Zaluski & Zernofi, at St. Petersburg. Will you kindly 
make inquiries for me as to his true character and history? 
I would not trouble you with this affair, but the fact is 
Zaluski has made an offer of marriage to one of my wards, 
and before consenting to any betrothal 1 must know what 
sort of man he really is. I take it for- granted that ‘ there 
is no smoke without fire,^ and that there must be some- 
thing in the very strange tale which 1 have just heard on 
the best authority. It is said that this Sigismund Zaluski 
left St. Petersburg in March, 1881, after the assassination 
of the late czar, in which he was seriously compromised. 
He is said to be an out-and-out Nihilist, an atheist, and, in 
short, a dangerous, disreputable fellow. Will you sift the 
matter for me? I don^t wish to dismiss the fellow without 
good reason, but of course 1 could not think of permitting 
him to be engaged to my niece until these charges are en- 
tirely disproved. 

‘‘ With kind remembrances to your father, 

“ I am yours faithfully, 
“Hehry Crichtoh-Morley.^" 


46 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP A SLANDER. 


MF SEVENTH STAGE. 

Yet on the dull silence breaking 
With a lightning flash, a word, 

Bearing endless desolation 
On its blighting wings, I heard; 

Earth can forge no keener weapon, 

Dealing surer death and pain. 

And the cruel echo answered 
Through long years again. 

A. A. Procter. 

Curiously enough, I must actually have started for 
Kussia on the same day that Sigismund Zaluski was sum- 
moned by his uncle at St. Petersburg to return on a mat- 
ter of urgent business. I learned afterward that the tele- 
gram arrived at Muddleton on the afternoon of one of 
those sunny September days and found Zaluski as usual at 
the Morleys^ He was very much annoyed at being called 
away just then, and before he had received any reply from 
Gertrude^s uncle as to the engagement. However, after 
a little ebullition of anger, he regained his usual philo- 
sophic tone, and, reminding Gertrude that he need not be 
away from England for more than a fortnight, he took 
leave of her and set off in a prompt, manly fashion, leav- 
ing most of his belongings at Ivy Cottage, which was his 
for another six weeks, and to which he hoped shortly to 
return. 

After a weary time of imprisonment in my e^y elope, I 
at length reached my destination at St. Petersburg and 
was read by Dmitry Leonoff. He was a very busy man, 


THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF A SLAHDER. 


47 


and bj the same post received dozens of other letters. He 
merely! muttered: “ That well-known firm! A most un- 
likely story I' ^ and then thrust me into a drawer with other 
letters which had to be answered. Very probably I es- 
caped his memory altogether for the next few days; how- 
ever, there 1 was, a startling accusation in black and white; 
and, as everybody knows, St. Petersburg is not London. 

The Leonofi family lived on the third story of a large 
block of buildings in the Sergeffskaia. About two o'clock 
in the morning, on the third day after my arrival, the 
whole household was roused from sleep by thundering raps 
on the door, and the dreaded cry of “ Open to the police!'' 

The unlucky master was forced to allow himself, his 
wife, and his childi^en to be made prisoners, while every 
corner of the house was searched, every book and paper 
examined. 

Leonoff had nothfng whatever to do with the revolution- 
ary movement, but absolute innocence does not free people 
from the police inquisition, and five or six years ago, when 
the Search mania was at its height, a case is on record of a 
poor lady whose house was searched seven times within 
twenty-four hours, though there was no evidence whatever 
that she was connected with the Nihilists; the whole affair 
was, in fact, a misunderstanding, as she was perfectly in- 
nocent. 

This search in Dmitry Leonoff's house was also a misun- 
derstanding, and in the dominions of the czar misunder- 
standings-are of frequent occurrence. 

Leonoff knew himself to be innocent, and he felt no 
fear, though considerable annoyance, while the search was' 


48 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


prosecuted; he could hardly believe the evidence of his 
senses when, without a word of explanation, he was in- 
formed that he must take leave of his wife and children, 
and go in charge of the gendarmes to the House of Pre- 
ventive Detention. 

Being a sensible man, he kept his temper, remarked 
courteously that some mistake must have been made, em- 
braced his weeping wife, and went off passively, while the 
pristav carried away a bundle of letters in which I occu- 
pied the most prominent place. 

Leonoff remained a prisoner only for a few days; there 
was not a shred of evidence against him, and, having 
suffered terrible anxiety, he was finally released. But 
Mr. Crichton-Morley’s letter was never restored to him, it 
remained in the hands of the authorities, and the night 
after Leonoff^s arrest the pristav, the procurator, and the 
gendarmes made their way into the dwelling of Sigismund 
Zaluski^s uncle, where a similar search was prosecuted. 

Sigismund was asleep and dreaming of Gertrude and of 
his idyllic summer in England, when his bedroom door 
was forced open and he was roughly roused by the gen- 
darmes. 

His first feeling was one of amazement, his second, one 
of indignation; however, he was obliged to get up at once 
and dress, the policeman rigorously keeping guard over 
him the whole time for fear he should destroy any treason- 
able document. 

How I shall make them laugh in England when I tell 
them of this ridiculous affair!"’ reflected Sigismund, as he 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLAHDER. 


49 


was solemnly marched into the adjoining room where he 
found his uncle and cousins, each guarded by a policeman. 

He made some jesting remark, but was promptly repri- 
manded by his jailer, and in wearisome silence the house- 
hold waited while the most rigorous search of the premises 
was made. 

Of course nothing was found; but, to the amazement of 
all, Sigismund was formally arrested. 

“ There must be some mistake,'^ he exclaimed. “ 1 
have been resident in England for some time. I have no 
connection whatever with Russian politics. 

“ Oh, we. are well aware of your residence in England,^’ 
said the pristav. “ You left St. Petersburg early in 
March, 1881. We are well aware of that.^^ 

Something in the man^s tone made Sigismund^s heart 
stand still. Could he possibly be suspected of complicity 
in the plot to assassinate the late czar? The idea would 
have made him laugh had he been in England. In St. 
Petersburg, and under these circumstances, it made him 
tremble. 

‘‘ There is some terrible mistake,^’ he said. “ I have 
never had the slightest connection with the revolutionary 
party. 

The pristav shrugged his shoulders, and Sigismund, 
feeling like one in a dream, took leave of his relations, and 
was escorted at once to the House of Preventive Deten- 
tion. 

Arrived at his destination, he was examined in a brief, 
unsatisfactory way; but when he angrily asked for the evi- 
dence on which he had been arrested, he was merely told 


50 


THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


that information had been received charging him with be- 
ing concerned in the assassination of the late emperor, and 
of being an advanced member of the Nihilist party. His 
vehement denials were received with scornful incredulity, 
his departure for England just after the assassination, and 
his prolonged absence from Russia, of course gave color to 
the accusation, and he was ordered oS to his cell “ to re- 
flect.’" 


MY TRIUMPHANT FINALE. 

Words are mighty, words are living; 

Serpents with their venomous stings, 

Or bright angels crowding round us. 

With heaven’s light upon their wings; 

Every word has its own spirit. 

True or false, that never dies; 

Every word man’s lips have uttered. 

Echoes in God’s skies. 

A. A. Procter. 

My labors were now nearly at an end, and being, so to 
speak, ofl duty, I could occupy myself just as 1 pleased. 
I therefore resolved to keep watch over Zaluski in his 
prison. ^ 

For the first few hours after his arrest he was in a vio- 
lent passion; he paced up and down his tiny cell like a lion 
in a cage; he was beside himself with indignation, and the 
blood leaped through his veins like wildfire. 

Then he became a little ashamed of himself and tried to 
grow quiet, and after* sleepless night he passed to the op- 


THE AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF A SLAHDEE. 


51 


posite extreme and sat all day long on the solitary stool in 
his grim abode, his head resting on his hands, and his 
mind a prey to the most fearful melancholy. 

The second night, however, he slept and awoke with a 
steady resolve in his mind. 

“ It will never do to give way like this, or I shall be in 
a brain fever in no time,^^ he reflected. “ I will get leave 
to have books and writing materials. I will make the best 
of a bad business. 

He remembered how pleased he had been when Gertrude 
had once smiled on him because, when all the others in the 
party were grumbling at the discomforts of a certain picnic 
where the provisions had gone astray, he had gayly made 
the best of it and ransacked the nearest cottages for bread 
and cheese. He set to work bravely now; hoped daily for 
his release; read all the books he was allowed to receive, 
invented solitary games, began a novel, and drew cari- 
catures. 

In October he was again examined; but, having nothing 
to reveal, it was inevitable that he could reveal nothing; 
and he was again sent back to his cell ‘‘ to reflect. 

I perceived that after this his heart began to fail him. 

There existed in the House of Preventve Detention a 
system of communication between the luckless prisoners 
carried on by means of tapping on the wall. Sigismund, 
being a clever fellow, had become a great adept at this 
telegraphic system, and had struck up a friendship with a 
young student in the next cell. This poor fellow had been 
imprisoned three years, his sole offense being that he had 
in his possession a book of which the government did not 


52 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 

approve, and that he was first cousin to a well-known 
Nihilist. 

The two became as devoted to each other as Silvio Peili- 
co and Count Oroboni; but it soon became evident to Va- 
lerian Vasilowitch that, unless Zaluski was released, he 
would soon succumb to the terrible restrictions of prison 
life. 

“ Keep up your heart, my friend,’^ he used to say. I 
have borne it three years, and am still alive to tell the 
tale.^^ 

‘‘ But you are stronger both in mind and body,^^ said 
Sigismund; ‘‘ and you are not madly in love as I am.^^ 

And then he would pour forth a rhapsody about Ger- 
trude, and about English life, and about his hopes and 
fears for the future; to all of which Valerian, like the 
brave fellow he was, replied with words of encouragement. 

But at length there came a day when his friend made no 
answer to his usual morning greeting. ^ 

“ Are you ill?^^ he asked. 

For some time there was no reply, but after awhile Sig- 
ismund rapped faintly the despairing words: 

‘‘ Dead beat!^^ 

Valerian felt the tears start to his eyes. It was what he 
had all along expected, and for a time grief and indigna- 
tion and his miserable helplessness made him almost be- 
side himself. At last he remembered that there was at 
least one thing in his power. Each day he was escorted by 
a warder to a tiny square, walled oil in the exercising 
ground, and was allowed to walk for a few minutes; he 


THE AUTOr.IOGRAPHY OF A SLAHDER. 


53 


would take this opportunity of begging the warder to get 
the doctor for his friend. 

But unfortunately the doctor did not think very serious- 
ly of Zaluski^s case. In that dreary prison he had patients 
in the last stages of all kinds of disease, and Sigismund, 
who had been in confinement too short a time to look as 
ill as the others, did not receive much attention. Cer- 
tainly, the doctor admitted, his lungs were affected; prob- 
ably the sudden change of climate and the lack of good 
food and fresh air had been too much for him; so the 
solemn farce ended, and he was left to his fate. “If I 
were indeed a Nihilist, and suffered for a cause which 1 
had at heart, he telegraphed to Valerian, “ I could bear 
it better. But to be kept here for an imaginary offense, 
to bear cold and hunger and illness all to no purpose — that 
beats me. There canT be a God, or such things would 
not be allowed. 

“ To me it seems, said Valerian, “ that we are the vic- 
tims of violated law. Others have shown tyranny, or in- 
justice, or cruelty, and we are the victims of their sin. 
DonT say there is no God. There must be a God to 
avenge such hideous wrong. 

So they spoke to each other through their prison wall as 
men in the free outer world seldom care to speak; and I, 
who knew no barriers, looked now on Valerian ^s gaunt 
figure, and brave but prematurely old face, now on poor 
Zaluski, who, in his weary imprisonment had wasted away 
till one could scarcely believe that he was indeed the same 
lithe, active fellow who had played tennis at Mrs. Courte- 
nay^’s garden-party. 


54 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLAHDER. 


Day and night Valerian listened to the terrible cough 
which came from the adjoining cell. It became perfectly 
apparent to him that his friend was dying; he knew it as 
well as if he had seen the burning hectic flush on his hol- 
low cheeks, and heard the panting, hurried breaths, and 
watched the unnatural brilliancy of his dark eyes. 

At length he thought the time had come for another 
sort of comfort. 

“My friend,’^ he said one day, “it is too plain to me 
now that you are dying. Write to the procurator and tell 
him so. In some cases men have been allowed to go home 
to die.^^ 

A wild hope seized on poor Sigismund; he sat down to 
the little table in his cell and wrote a letter to the pro- 
curator — a letter which might almost have drawn tears 
from a flint. Again and again he passionately asserted 
his innocence, and begged to know on what evidence he 
was imprisoned. He began to think that he could die con- 
tent if he might leave this terrible cell, might be a free 
agent once more, if only for a few days. At least he 
might in that case clear his character, and convince Ger- 
trude that his imprisonment had been all a hideous mis- 
take; nay, he fancied that he might live through a journey 
to England and see her once again. 

But the procurator would not let him be set free, and 
refused to believe that his case was really a serious one. 

Sigismund's last hope left him. 

The days and weeks dragged slowly on, and when, ac- 
cording to English reckoning, New-year^s-eve arrived, he 
could scarcely believe that only seventeen weeks ago he 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


55 


had actually been with Gertrude, and that disgrace and 
imprisonment had seemed things that could never come 
near him, and death had been a far-away possibility, and 
life had been full of bliss. 

As 1 watched him a strong desire seized me to revisit 
the scenes of which he was thinking, and I winged my way 
back to England, and soon found myself in the drowsy, 
respectable streets of Muddleton. 

It was New-year's-eve, and I saw Mrs. O'Eeilly prepar- 
ing presents for her grandchildren, and talking, as she tied 
them up, of that dreadful Nihilist who had deceived them 
in the summer. I saw Lena Houghton, and Mr. Black- 
thorne, and Mrs. Milton-Oleave, kneeling in church on 
that Friday morning, praying that pity might be shown 
“ upon all prisoners and captives, and all that are desolate 
or oppressed. " 

It never occurred to them that they were responsible for 
the sufferings of one weary prisoner, or that his death 
would be laid at their door. 

I flew to Dulminster, and saw Mrs. Selldon kneeling in 
the cathedral at the late evening* service and rigorously ex- 
amining herself as to the shortcomings of the dying year. 
She confessed many things in a vague, untroubled way; 
but had any one told her that she had cruelly wronged her 
neighbor, and helped to bring an innocent man to shame, 
and prison, and death, she would not have believed the 
accusation. 

I sought out Mark Shrewsbury. He was at his cham- 
bers in Pump Court working away with his type-writer; 
he had a fancy for working the old year out and the new 


56 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


year in, and now he was in the full swing of that novel 
which had suggested itself to his mind when Mrs. Selldon 
described the rich and mysterious foreigner who had set- 
tled down at Ivy Cottage. Most happily he labored on, 
never dreaming that his careless words had doomed a fel- 
low-man to a painful and lingering death; never dreaming 
that while his fingers flew to and fro over his dainty lit- 
tle key-board, describing the clever doings of the unscrup- 
ulous foreigner, another man, the victim of his idle gossip, 
tapped dying messages on a dreary prison wall. 

For the end had come. 

Through the evening Sigismund rested wearily on his 
truckle-bed. He could not lie down because of his cough, 
and, since there were no extra pillows to prop him up, he 
had to rest his head and shoulders against the wall. There 
was a gas-burner in the tiny cell, and by its light he looked 
round the bare walls of his prison with a blank, hopeless, 
yet wistful gaze; there was the stool, there was the table, 
there were the clothes he should never wear again, there 
was the door through which his lifeless body would soon be 
carried. He. looked at everything lingeringly, for he 
knew that this desolate prison was the last bit of the world 
he should ever see. 

Presently the gas was turned out. He sighed as he felt 
the darkness close in upon him, for he knew that his eyes 
would never again see light— knew that in this dark, lone- 
ly cell he must lie and wait for death. And he was young 
and wished to live, and he was in love and longed most 
terribly for the presence of the woman he loved. 

The awful desolateness of the cell was more than he 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLAKDER. 


5 ? 


could endure; he tried to think of his past life, he tried to 
live once again through those happy weeks with Gertrude; 
but always he came back to the aching misery of the pres- 
ent — the cold and the pain, and the darkness and the terri- 
ble solitude. 

His nerveless fingers felt their way to the wall and faint- 
ly rapped a summons. 

‘‘Valerian!'^ he said, I shall not live through the 
night. Watch with me. 

The faint raps sounded clearly in the stillness of the 
great building, and Valerian dreaded lest the warders 
should hear them and deal out punishment for an offense 
which by day they were forced to wink at. 

But he would not for the world have deserted his friend. 
He drew his stool close to the wall, wrapped himself round 
in all the clothes he could muster, and, shivering with 
cold, kept watch through the long winter night. 

‘‘I am near you,^^ he telegraphed. ‘‘ I will watch with 
you till morning. 

From time to time Sigismund rapped faint messages, 
and Valerian replied with comfort and sympathy. Once 
he thought to himself, ‘‘ My friend is better; there is more 
power in his hand.'’^ And indeed he trembled, fearing 
that the sharp, emphatic raps must certainly attract notice 
and put an end to their communion. 

“ Tell my love that the accusation was false— false 
the word was vehemently repeated. “ Tell her I died 
broken-hearted, loving her to the end. ” 

“ 1 will tell her all when I am free,^^ said poor Valerian, 


58 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 


wondering with a sigh when his unjust imprisonment 
would end. Do you suffer much?’"’ he asked. 

There was a brief interval. Sigismund hesitated to tell 
a falsehood in his last extremity. 

‘‘ It will soon be over. Do not be troubled for me/^ he 
replied. And after that there was a long, long silence. 

Poor fellow! he died hard; and I wished that those com- 
fortable English people could have been dragged from 
their warm beds and brought into the cold, dreary cell 
where their victim lay, fighting for breath, suffering 
cruelly both in mind and body. Valerian, listening in sad 
suspense, heard one more faint word rapped by the dying 
man: 

“ Farewell!^' 

“ God be with you!^^ he replied, unable to check the 
tears which rained down as he thought of the life so sadly 
ended, and of his own bereavement. 

He heard no more. Sigismund^s strength failed him, 
and I, to whom the darkness made no difference, watched 
him through the last dread struggle; there was no one to 
raise him, or hold him, no one to comfort him. Alone in 
the cold and darkness of that first morning of the year 
1887, he died. 

Valerian did not hear through the wall his last faint, 
gasping cry, but I heard it, and its exceeding bitterness 
would have made mortals weep. 

‘‘ Gertrude he sobbed. ‘‘Gertrude!^' 

And with that his head sunk on his breast, and the life, 
which but for me might have been so happy and prosper- 
ous, was ended. 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLAiq-DER. ^59 

* * * * * * ♦ 

Prompted by curiosity, I instantly returned to Muddle- 
ton and sought out Gertrude Morley. 1 stole into her 
room. She lay asleep, but her dreams were troubled, and 
her face, once so fresh and bright, was worn with pain and 
anxiety. 

Scarcely had I entered the room when, to my amaze- 
ment, I saw the spirit of Sigismund Zaluski. 

1 saw him bend down and kiss the sleeping girl, and for 
a moment her sad face lighted up with a radiant smile. 

I looked again; he was gone. Then Gertrude threw up 
both her arms and with a bitter cry awoke from her 
dream. 

‘‘ SigismundP^ she cried. Oh, Sigismund! Now 1 
know that you are dead indeed I 

For a long, long time she lay in a sort of trance of mis- 
ery. It seemed as if the life had been almost crushed out 
of her, and it was not until the bells began to ring for the 
six-o^’clock service, merrily pealing out their welcome of 
the New-year morning, that full conciousness returned to 
her again. But, as she clearly realized what had hap- 
pened, she broke into such a passion of tears as 1 had 
never before witnessed, while still in the darkness the 
New-year bells rang gayly, and she knew that they herald- 
ed for her the beginning of a lonely life. 

And so my work ended; my part in this world was 
played out. Nevertheless, I still live; and there will come 
a day when Sigismund and Gertrude shall be comforted 
and the slanderers punished. 

For poor Valerian was right, and there is an Avenger, 


60 THE AUTOETOGRAPHY OF A ^iANDER. 

in whom even my progenitor believes, and before whom 
he trembles. 

There will come a time when those self-satisfied ones, 
whose hands are all the time steeped in blood, shall be con- 
fronted with me, and shall realize to the full all that their 
idle words have brought about. 

For that day I wait; and though afterward I shall be 
finally destroyed in the general destruction of all that is 
unmitigatedly evil, I promise myself a certain satisfaction 
and pleasure (a feeling I doubtless inherit from my pro- 
genitor), when I watch the shame, and horror, and re- 
morse of Mrs. O’Reilly and the rest of the people to whom 
1 owe my existence and rapid growth. 


THE END. 


“JBRET.” 


BY THE “DUCHESS.” 



He was starving! Hot hungry as you or I might be^ 
had we fasted for ten or twelve hours at a stretch, but 
literally dying for want of food. He lay back in the dingy 
door- way exhausted, half unconscious, his one friend 
clasped to his breast. His face was dirty and of a leaden 
hue, the lips a pale purple, and his hands were as the 
claws of some untamed thing. 

Heavily fell the rain upon the darkening street; the 
chill, bitter fog of the December night grew momentarily 
deeper, and through it the rain-drops pushed their way 
sluggishly. Little Jerry, lying in the comfortless shade of 
the dull door-way, scarcely heeded how the moisture came 
that saturated the wretched rags that clothed his frame. 

For two long days no food had passed his lips. The 
deadly fever that had seized on him a fortnight ago, while 
with him, had killed the sense of hunger, but yesterday it 
had left him, just at the break of dawn, and with its going 
had come a wild craving for food, of some — of any mvi. 
Wearily he had lifted his tired little head from the misera- 
ble . pillow of damp sacking that supported it, to ask in 
feeble tones for drink, for meat, to find himself in that 
darksome cellar alone! 


62 


JERRY. 


<( 


jy 


It was a horrible shock to the child. He had lain un- 
conscious, caught by the f everts deadly clutch, while the 
woman with whom he had lived ever since he could re- 
member anything had succumbed to that same fever^s in- 
fluence, and had died and been buried. A miserable 
drunken creature, in a way kind to him when sober, 
brutal to him when gin overpowered her, but as she was, 
the only protector he knew. Whether she was his moth- 
er, or whether fate had just drifted him into her path the 
child never knew, but the sense that she was lost to him 
forever filled him with an awful dread. He knew it when 
no voice answered his in the early gloom of that winter^s 
morning, when his parched tongue had cried aloud with- 
out response. When he had dragged his worn limbs to the 
pallet where she used to lie and found she was no longer 
there, weak as he was, and crushed by this sudden knowl- 
edge, he hurried back to his own bed, and with nervous, 
feverish hands sought there for something that in his ter- 
rified haste he could not find. He whistled in a sobbing 
fashion, and at last, languidly, a tiny shaggy soft thing 
crept to him and sought his arms, and with the puppy, his 
only and most passionately prized possession in his arms, 
he groped his way to the door and found himself upon the 
street just as the first faint streaks of dawn grew in the 
sullen east. 

That was yesterday. He had met a slattern on emerg- 
ing from his lair, and had stayed her to ask eagerly, pite- 
ously: 

“ Where is mum?’’ and she had answered: 

“Ye’ve the right to ask — y’ave! After givin’ ’er the 


JERRY. 


63 


ec 




fever as killed her. Get along wi’ ye, ye young var- 
mint. 

He got along, and all day, oppressed with the weight of 
the idea that he had killed that woman, and oppressed, 
too, by the weakness that held him as its prey, he sat in 
shaded door- ways or gaunt arch- ways, hardly knowing that 
the demon hunger was gnawing at him. Not heeding 
either, because hardly able to bear the whinings of the 
starving puppy he held to him with such a tenacious 
grasp. 

But as the next day broke he knew that he wanted food, 
and a sickening desire for it arose within him. But how 
to get it! In all that big, great city of London, who was 
'Ihere to give meat to this poor stricken lamb.^ Not one! 
It was nobody^s business! Many men, good men and true, 
were they sure he was starving, could they see him, was his 
miserable case placed exactly beneath their benevolent 
noses would, I know, have given him suflScient to keep 
him in clover for the rest of his life. But then it takes so 
long to bring these miserable cases beneath the noses of 
the benevolent ones, that myriads die while the attempt is 
being made, and only one out of the many is saved. ^ 

It seemed to him that he must have dozed awhile, as 
when next his dim eyes looked with discernment upon the 
world, the darkness of night was falling. The rain, too, 
was heavier, and through it the lamps that lighted the 
wretched by-street where he crouched shone with a lurid 
light. 

The little dog was dead, but the child did not know it. 
I am always glad to think he did not know that. He held 


64 


JERRY. 




9 > 


it still fondly, convulsively clasped to his breast, and as 
the body was yet warm it did not dawn upon his dulled 
mind that life was gone from it. He sat quite still, his 
he^ drooping somewhat forward, and one could see that 
his face might have been pretty but for the stamp of death 
present, and of misery, now nearly passed, that disfig- 
ured it. 

By and by, as he still sat there faint and sick because 
of the ravening and gnawing feeling within him, a young 
man came swinging down the dingy street — a young man, 
gaunt to emaciation, with hollow cheeks and deepset eyes, 
and altogether a face suggestive of famine. It was not a 
good face! The devil had planted a line here and there in 
it — cynical curves round the thin lips, a mocking light in 
the eyes, a matured expression of scorn toward the world 
in general. He looked as if he were always carrying on a 
bitter warfare with his kind. 

His clothes were threadbare, his hat shocking. Beneath 
his arm he hugged a handful of shabby books as if his very 
soul (although he would have scorned a belief in one) was 
centered on them. As indeed it was. A student evident- 
ly; out at elbows, penniless. 

“Eh! what have we here?^^ said he, stopping abruptly 
before the half-insensible boy and poking him with his 
stick. “ Another starveling! Come, speak up, child; 
what ails you, eh?"^ 

Boused by this rude address and dreading all things, 
Jerry lifted his dull eyes and turned a suppliant smile 
upon his questioner. It was a wof ul little smile, entreat- 


JEKRY. 


65 


cc 


9 > 


ing, imploring, and openly deprecating the blow that he 
so plainly expected. All his poor little life long, blows 
had been his portion. 

“ So!’^ said the evil-looking young man with a sinister 
smile, ‘‘starving, eh? I was right, then?’^ He stared at 
the child as if musing. “ Here, before one, lies a distinct 
atom of the vast mysterious whole. Here too lies a strik- 
ing example of the absolute truthfulness of that charming 
little fable so sweet to the well-fed good man’s ear. The 
Divine mercy! The everlasting love that will not let so 
much as one sparrow fall to the ground — to which the lit- 
tle ones are so specially dear ! Here, I say, is an admira- 
ble illustration of it — a wood-cut, let us say, an insignifi- 
cant etching,” with a glance at the miserably shrunken 
little frame of the child at his feet. He laughed aloud; a 
laugh that cut like a bit of cold, cruel steel into the heart 
of the cowering boy. Was the blow coming now? 

“ YouTl die if you don’t look sharp,” said the strange 
man, after another prolonged glance at him, followed by 
a shrug. He thrust his hand into his pocket and brought 
out three coppers and a sixpenny bit. “ Here, catch!” 
said he, chucking the sixpence to the boy, who by a super- 
human effort caught it, and then turned a glance of pas- 
sionate gratitude up to his unknown friend. 

“Don’t,” said the latter, with his unpleasant laugh. 
“ I expect I’ve done you the worst turn of any. It was a 
gross liberty on my part to seek to prolong your days. 
You will fling that sixpence into the nearest gutter if you 
have a grain of sense; if not, make it last for two days. 
It is more than I shall have to live upon for that time.” 

3 


06 jerry/"' 

He paused, and then said, abruptly: ‘‘ There^s a shop 
round the corner./^ 

The boy had dragged himself up by the lintel of the 
door, with a view to thanking him properly, in spite of his 
contemptuous prohibition, but with his last words the 
young man flung himself round and into the middle of the 
passing crowd, carrying his eager, wild, accusing face into 
the turmoil of the great city. 

Jerry, still hugging to his breast the dead dog, moved 
slowly and painfully down the street, turned the corner, 
and stopped at last before the lighted windows of the cook- 
shop to which he had been directed. A delicious perfume 
came from the open door, the window, aglow with ga's, 
showed dainties so coarse to you or me, but so delicate to 
the famished boy that he almost fainted at the sight of 
them. For a minute or two he let his gaze feast itself 
upon the rich display, and then slowly opened his dirty 
emaciated little hand to look at the talisman that should 
give him his share of the good things he craved. His sil- 
ver sixpence lay upon his palm, and the child ^s eyes grew 
bright again, half conquering the death-sleep that had so 
nearly closed them only now, as he stared at it. A whole, 
whole sixpence. 

Alas! two other eyes beheld that sixpence at the same 
moment. A great, rough, villainous-looking creature, 
half boy, half man, peered over the child’s shoulder, saw 
the coin, stooped yet a little nearer as a hawk above its 
prey, and then the little dirty palm was empty, the blessed 
life-giving money gone ! 

Poor Jerry! A sensation as of a deadly chill ran 


JERKY. 


67 


(( 


yy 


through him, and for a moment he reeled heavily against 
the bars of the window. But after that it seemed to him 
that he thought no more of it, he gave in, and though not 
conscious of the fact, quietly surrendered himself to death. 
It was all over. No hope, no life — nothing was left! 
Perhaps, indeed, he scarcely knew how things went with 
him for awhile, but instinct at least led his dying footsteps 
back' to the old horrible home — the loathsome cellar in the 
squalid court. With faltering feet, with a dull, stupid 
despair upon his half-dead little face, with the now cold 
and stiff puppy pressed to his heart, he descended the 
stone steps, and, like a wild thing stricken sore, sought his 
lair. 

Inside all was still, all was dark. A horrible silence pre- 
vailed, a very blackness of darkness that might be felt. 
He began to be frightened, horribly frightened. He put 
the dog down and pressed the palms of his hands tight — 
tight against his eyeballs that he might not see the grew- 
some shapes of which the dread gloom seemed full. Teem- 
ing shapes that changed ever and ever, and drew nearer, 
and touched him as he thought — sometimes his hair, and 
now — ah! — now his cheek. 

And then the harsh, racking cough, that had been his 
for a twelvemonth, caught him, and shook his thin little 
frame so roughly in its rude grasp that he had to take 
down his hands from his eyes to press them to that side 
where the pain was most cruel; but he still kept his eyes 
fast closed lest he should see those weird awful creatures 
dancing here and there in the obscurity. 

He was cold— so cold! He shivered and shook with ter- 


68 


JERRY. 


(t 




ror, and with something else; that last dread icy chill that 
every moment crept closer and closer to his heart. And 
after awhile he sat down and let himself fall quietly back- 
ward until his poor, tired head lay upon the damp pave- 
ment. He put out a feeble hand, and finding the dead 
dog, mechanically drew it nearer to him. 

And then a wonderful thing happened! All at once the 
cellar, it seemed to him, grew full of light! A light, 
strange, awful, marvelous, such as you and I have never 
yet seen. And in it stood — One! 

A most gracious figure! Tall, a little bowed, and clad 
in a long garment, than which no snow, freshly fallen, was 
ever half so white. And the face — who shall tell the 
divine fairness of it? 

Little Jerry could not have described it then, but as he 
gazed on it, he knew all at once the fullest meaning of the 
words “ Love and Peace and “ Rest.^^ 

And the figure stooped and gathered to his breast the 
little frozen boy, and suddenly a soft delicious glow ran 
through his numbed veins. And Jerry let his tired head 
fall gently back against that tender bosom. 

And heavier and heavier grew the weary limbs, and then 
suddenly, oh, so light! and presently he felt himself lifted 
up — ever upward — and carried away — away. 

And never more did little Jerry know cold or hunger or 
fear or despair, and never again did darkness trouble him, 
for 

There shall he no night there.” 


THE END. 


■“THAT NIGHT IN JUNE.” 


BY THE “DUCHESS.” 


‘‘ What a charming clay, grandmamma says Mr. 
Wilding, walking into the small morning-room in Peny- 
wern Eoad, South Kensington, and directing a genial 
glance at the faded remains of what once was beauty, re- 
posing in an antiquated arm-chair. 

It is a charming day. Outside, the sun is beating 
heavily on road and house and such luckless beings as 
must walk abroad. The whole earth is bowing before its 
majesty, going humbly, and imploring with faint gasps a 
breath of air. Inside, the blinds are all pulled down as 
though to exclude it, and in the grate a fire — an actual, 
roaring, maddening fire — is burning. 

“ Charming, is iti^^’ says grandmamma, declining to 
see the geniality of her visitor. Can Nature produce a 
charming day in this age? I think it chilly.^’ 

She is sitting with her knees well into the fire, and with 
the grim expression that usually greets her grandson^s ap- 
proach upon her withered lips. 

Why not try a foot- warmer and a fur cloak?^^ says 
Mr. Wilding, furtively wiping his brow. “You donT 
take half care of yourself; and really enuring the present 
inclemency — ^ 


70 


THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


ff 


‘‘ May I ask what has brought you here to-day?'^ inter- 
rupts she, with an amount of ungraciousness difficult to 
combat. But he is accustomed to her incivility; and as 
Hecuba is nothing to him, and he is less to Hecuba, he 
hardly takes it to heart. 

“ An overpowering desire to see you/’ he replies, in- 
dolently, but with an admirable assumption of amiability. 

“ Pray spare your gibes when addressing me,'^ says the 
old lady, tartly. “ Keep them for your unfortunate 
clients, if you have any. Something besides a dutiful 
consideration for my welfare has brought you here to-day. 
What is it?^^ 

What an intelligent person you are, grandmamma, 
murmurs he, languidly, with what is meant for enthusi- 
asm, but ends in sarcasm. “ Concealment with you is 
impossible. Another — but, of course, a very secondary— 
motive /las brought me here this morning. The fact is, I 
have some stalls for the opera, and I thought perhaps 
Brenda might like to hear Patti again. 

“And to hear her with you alone! Certainly not! 
Nothing of the sort,’^ says Lady Molyneux, with em- 
phasis. “ If that is your mission, George, it is unsuccess- 
ful. I shall never give my consent.’^ 

“ I never dreamed you would,^^ replies the prudent 
George, who had dreamed it fondly, nevertheless. “ Jose- 
phine will come with us. You can scarcely object to trust- 
ing her with her married sister.’^ 

“Humph, Jose? 1 always say Jose is only half mar- 
ried, that man makes such a fool of her.^^ 

“And even if Jose were not in. question, why should 


THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


71 


(( 




she not come with me alone pursues he, his foot on the 
fender, his eyes on the repellent old face, so lined and 
seared with age and querulous discontent. “ Surely a 
cousin may count as a brother any day. ^ ’ 

“ May it? I don^t think so. I can not say how society 
may regard it in these indecent days, but, in my time, one 
relative was never mistaken for another. Besides, there 
are cousins and cousins.^' 

‘‘ And which am asks he, with so much careless in- 
difference as stings her. 

“You are your father's son," replies' she, bitterly. 
“ No one of the blood ever came to good." 

“ I can't say you are over-civil," returns he, with a little 
insolent shrug; and then the door opens, and Brenda her- 
self enters quickly, and with the unpremeditated manner 
of one who anticipates an empty room. Seeing George, 
she starts perceptibly, smiles involuntarily, and blushes 
beautifully. 

She is a very pretty girl, of middle height, with large 
dark eyes, shaded by lengthy lashes, a riante mouth, and 
the dearest little nose in the world. 

“Ha! Brenda," says grandmamma, looking round — 
the blush and ready smile have faded by this time, and are 
a secret between her and her cousin — “ come here." 

The girl, having shaken hands with George in a calm, 
orthodox fashion, goes up to Lady Molyneux's chair, and, 
standing behind her, leans on the top of it. So standing, 
her face is hidden from grandmamma. 

“ I have some tickets for to-night. I want grandmam- 


^"THAT l^IGHT IN JUNE. 


72 


9 9 


ma to let you come and hear Patti/’ repeats Wilding, 
coldly. 

Miss Molyneux is preparing to go into ecstasies over this 
news, when she is stopped by a vigorous gesture of the 
hand and a frown from her cousin. Changing her role on 
the spot, she says, indifferently: 

‘‘ 1 have seen Patti so often. It is good of you, George, 
to think of me; but really — ” 

“Eh!” says grandmamma, making a praiseworthy but 
utterly hopeless effort to turn her neck so as to see the 
flower-like face bending over her chair. “ What is it you 
sayi' Not care 9 1 beg, Brenda, you will not try to copy 
the Uase airs that distinguish, and render obnoxious, the 
youth of to-day. I think you ought to go. The tickets 
are bought, and I object to extravagance. Certainly you 
should go, if it were not for Disney. Is it that you think 
he would object?” anxiously. 

“ I was not thinking of Lord Disney,” says the girl, 
proudly. 

Wilding is staring very hard at her, and she lowers her 
eyes, and flushes hotly — she scarcely knows why. Perhaps 
she fears he may see the repugnance, and detestation, and 
deep grief that disflgure the beauty of her face. 

“ Even if Brenda is to marry Lord Disney,” says Wild- 
ing, calmly, carefully particular about giving him his 
formal title, “ I do not see — ” 

“ If,’' interrupts the old dame, flercely, “ if indeed!” 

“ Dost thou answer me with ‘ ifs ’ ?” says Wilding in a 
low tone to his cousin, who returns his glance with a faint, 
a very faint smile. 


THAT HIGHT IH JUNE. 


73 


iC 




“ Of course she will marry him/’ goes on grandmam- 
ma, shrilly. “ What! throw even a doubt upon an en- 
gagement that has lasted since Brenda was fifteen! an en- 
gagement so admirable, so suitable, so splendid with 
regard to settlements! It is like you, George, to disregard 
its importance. A girl without a penny; like father, like 
son; reckless — reckless!” 

“ Do you think he will break this suitable engagement 
if Brenda goes to the opera with her sister?” asks Wild- 
ing, in an impossible' tone. 

“ I don’t know, I’m sure, what he may think of it,” 
says grandmamma, perplexed. “You see Disney in many 
ways — is — is — eccentric. ’ ’ 

“ He would be, you know, at his age,” says Wilding, 
slowly. 

“ What do you mean, George?” 

“ I mean, eccentricity generally accompanies old age,” 
says Wilding, obstinately. 

“ He is not old. Certainly not old. He is just in his 
prime. ” 

“ So difficult to define that word ‘ prime,* ” murmurs 
he, provokingly. “ But of course I erred. He can’t be 
old. He is even younger than you, grandmamma!” 

“ Perhaps, after all, I may as well see Patti again be- 
fore the season closes,” puts in Brenda, lightly. “ As you 
seem to advise my going, grandmamma, I shall accept 
George’s offer. ” 

“ Well, be sure you take my latch-rkey! I can’t have 
my servants kept up all night,” says Lady Molyneux, de- 
termined to sustain her unamiability to its dreary end. 


74 


^^THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


)> 


past ten is my hour. And as Jose will be with 
you, you can let yourself in and go to bed, for one night, 
without assistance. Core hates late hours. As Core, 
her ladyship^s maid, is virtually mistress of the house, 
tyrannizing even over the tyrant grandmamma, every one 
sees the sense of this remark. 

“ I shahi^t forget, dear,^^ says Brenda, straightening 
Lady Molyneux’s cap, which has gone somewhat awry dur- 
ing the heat of argument. 

“Then I suppose the matter has -arranged itself,^’ says 
Wilding, q^uietly. “ Good-bye, grandmamma. I shall 
see you to-night, Brenda,’^ holding out his hand. She 
gives him hers, and raises to his eyes luminous and glad. 
She does not care to conceal from him the satisfaction that 
warms her heart, as she dwells upon the pleasure that lies 
before her. Perhaps she hardly knows how dangerously 
sweet that pleasure is. Is it indeed Patti, or George Wild- 
ing^s voice, she likes best to hear? She has promised to 
marry Disney, and she will marry him; of course, that is 
quite settled. Nothing can alter tJiatj but just now — now 
— for a littlp while out of all her life, why not be happy? 

And Jose will be with her. Dear Jose! 'Nothing can 
be sweeter than Jose! Once or twice before she has gone 
to the opera with her and George, and she has always been 
so engrossed with the music and so deaf to all other 
sounds, and so absolutely determined not to enter into 
conversation of any sort with any one, that Brenda and 
George might as well have been alone. 

“Yes, to-night,^'’ she says, softly, and smiles at him 
again, and sends him away outwardly calm, but with a 


THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


75 


a 


a 


heart that curses fate and grandmamma, and, above all. 
Lord Disney. 

* * * * H< * 

At the appointed hour he calls for her, and at his com- 
mand she descends the stair beneath the gas-light, cloak- 
clad in her prettiest gown, with a soft blue cashmere 
around her, and on her head the daintiest of swan^s-down 
hoods, from which her eyes look out, dark and misty and 
loving. Her hair is roaming at its own sweet will across 
her low broad forehead, her color is somewhat heightened, 
altogether she looks distractingly pretty as she steps into 
the night brougham, and they drive away to Cromwell 
Koad to take up Jose. 

Alas! Jose is not to be taken up! (the expression of 
sorrow is all my own) ; upon the stairs, with a huge white, 
fleecy shawl twisted round her unhappy head, she stands, 
“ like Niobe, all tears. 

“It is toothache,^ ^ she exclaims, in muffled tones. 
That fiend among pains has laid hold of her, and having 
her safely in his .clutches, refuses to release her without a 
heavy fine. Fred— her husband— has gone for a dentist to 
extract this fine. 

“ And of course it is dreadful, darling, really quite too 
dreadful, but you see I canH go; so George must have sole 
charge of you to-night. 

“ Grandmamma will be so angry, says Brenda, nerv- 
ously. 

“ Why need she know? Grandmamma is an old bore,’^ 
says Jose, with heartfelt meaning. She is very young, 
and is a person of undeniable spirit; and, as a fact, re- 


76 


‘^THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


•>1 


gards grandmamma with irreverence, and Lord Disney 
with disgust and openest disdain. ‘‘ She will never find it 
out,^^ she goes on, as cheerfully as the fiend in possession 
will permit her. If / had listened to all her crotchets 
and world-worn theories a year ago, I shouldnH be mar- 
ried to Fred now. Oh! dear, oh! dear, will he never 
come? This pain is maddening. There, go away, you 
two. And take great care of her, George. And bring her 
home directly, you know; and I shall* tell Fred to suppress 
all about the dentist to-morrow. 

“ It sounds very deceitful, doesnT. it?^^ says poor Brenda. 

“It is nothing when you are used to it,^^ replies the 
married sister. 

“ And I am safe to be found out; I always am,” says 
Brenda. 

“ Well, it is all grandmamma^s own fault. On her 
head be it,’^ says Jose, who seems to enjoy the situation 
far more than the other two. “ Never be a bugbear, 
Brenda; you see what awful mischief accrues from making 
one’s self a bogey. Oh! I shall go out of my mind if this 
hateful pain continues much longer. Go away, do. And 
come and see me to-morrow, and tell me all about it.” 

* * si« ♦ ^ ^ 

The opera is charming, and Patti excels herself; but 
time flies, and bright things fade, and soon the curtain 
drops, and Spanish castles fall; and Brenda, with a sigh, 
places her hand upon her cousin’s arm, and soon they 
have made their way through the fashionable throng, and 
are speeding homeward through the deserted streets. 

As they arrive at No. 7, some clock in the distance 


THAT KIGHT IH JUHE. 


77 


tt 


9) 


chimes twelve. They run up the steps, and Brenda puts 
her hand in her pocket to draw out the latch-key. 

“ Be sure you don’t commit yourself about Jose’s de- 
fection,” says Wilding; and then he stops short, struck by 
the change in her face. 

“ George, did I give you the key?” she asks, in a 
frightened tone. 

“No. It was on the sideboard when we came out. I 
told you to remember it. Have you not got it?” 

“ I have not. I never brought it at all. 1 must have 
given it to you,” desperately. 

“I am sure you did not. ” 

“ Nevertheless, try. Try your pockets. Try every 
pocket you have,” says Brenda, miserably. 

He does try every pocket, one after the other, but in 
vain; no key betrays itself anywhere. 

“ Well, never mind,” says George; “ we must .only put 
a good face on the matter, and ring up the servants.” 

“ Rmg? You might ^ring until morning! You might 
ring until you were black in the face!” exclaims Brenda, 
with the impatience of despair, “ and nobody could hear 
you. Why, they all sleep at the very top of the house, be- 
yond all hearing; and grandmamma never will get a bell 
put to their rooms. What is to be done?” 

“ Come to Jose.” 

“ Jose has no servants’ bell either, and they all go to 
bed early,” replies Miss Molyneux, on the verge of tears. 

“ Good gracious,” says Mr. Wilding, at last thoroughly 
roused to a sense of the awfulness of the situation; “ what 
on earth shall we do?” 


78 


THAT NIGHT IK JUKE. 


C( 




It is a dark and gloomy night. The Chaste Diana 
has sulked and gone to bed; the stars are nowhere. Not 
a sound disturbs the silence that envelops the quiet road, 
except an occasional cough from Fenmore the coachman, 
who is waiting with the brougham to convey Wilding 
home, and who sits upon the box the very model of pro- 
priety, and never so much as glances in their direction. 
Perhaps he is wrapped in fond dreams of days gone by 
when he and Mrs. Fenmore were “ a-courting,^^ and has a 
secret sympathy for the two on the doorstep. 

A huge black cat, hideous as a gnome, springs from 
some dark corner, and with a weird yell rushes across the 
road and disappears down some area at the opposite side. 

“ This all comes of doing what I knew was wrong, says 
Brenda presently, finding her companion silent. ‘ ‘ I 
wish,^^ ungratefully, “you had never asked me to go to 
that horrible opera. 

“ I thought she sung very well,^^ alluding to Patti. 
“And I certainly couldnT be expected to know how 
things were going to turn out,^^ says Mr. Wilding, some- 
what aggrieved. 

“ You shouldnT have listened to Jose; you should have 
brought me straight home. It is all your fault, says 
Brenda, most unfairly. 

“ Well, it wasnT I who forgot the latch-key, anyhow,^’ 
says Mr. Wilding, unwisely incensed. 

At this unlucky speech, his cousin, seeing at last a good 
opening, gives way to bitter reproach. 

“ Yes, that is just like you,^^ she says, large tears . 
gathering in her lovely eyes. “ To upbraid me now, when 


THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


79 


(< 


}) 


1 am most unhappy. If you were in trouble, George, I 
would not treat you so. 

‘‘ Don^t speak to me like that,'^ says Wilding, misera- 
bly. I am far more upset about this unfortunate mat- 
ter than you can be. ” 

“ That is impossible. Grandmamma canT look at you, 
as though she meant to devour you in one bite. 

“ If I had anywhere to take you,^^ goes on George, 
“ any home of my own, with some old aunt at the head of 
it. for instance. Lots of fellows have aunts who live with 
them,^^ grudgingly. ‘‘ But I never saw the aunt that 
would live with me; and of course a bachelor^s rooms 
wouldnT do, not if 1 paced the streets all night. Why on 
earth am I not married?^^ says Mr. Wilding, distractedly. 

Is this a time to talk nonsense?^^ asks Brenda, with a 
sudden vehemence. “ Of course, if you were married, I 
should not be here at all, and that would end the whole 
matter. 

She’ is looking up at him from under the bewitching 
hood with two angry eyes that say far more than their 
owner is aware of. Her lips are quivering; two crimson 
spots enrich each rounded cheek. Wilding, gazing at her 
extreme beauty, loses his head. 

‘‘1 am not sure of that,"^ he says, unsteadily. “ I 
think if I were married, you, and you only, would be 
standing just there. 

‘‘George! George! have you forgotten?^^ entreats she, 
shrinking from him. 

“ 1 have forgotten nothing, not even Disney, returns 
he, recklessly. I know you don't care for that ghastly 


80 


THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


<< 




old corpse, laid out by Poole; how could you? And I love 
you, darling — darling. Forgive me, Brenda; I should not 
speak to you like this now, and here, but it has been on 
my heart for so long, and — I can't help it. But, if you 
will give me even the faintest encouragement, you shall 
never marry Disney, I swear. '' 

Perhaps he might have said even more, but Miss Moly- 
neux has burst into tears, and has covered her face with 
her hands, and is sobbing quietly, but bitterly. 

“ Don't do that, Brenda!" exclaims he, passionately. 
“ I can stand anything but that. Look here," desperate- 
ly, “ something must be done, you know; yon can't stay 
here all night. Wait one moment." 

Punning down the steps, he touches the devoted Fen- 
more’s elbow, and says something to him in a low tone. 
An earnest conversation follows. Then comes a faint 
sound as of silver falling upon silver, and then Wilding 
returns to his cousin’s side. 

“ Come," he says, quietly taking her hand. “ I have 
arranged for you. There is no help for it, Brenda; you 
must do as 1 tell you. " 

Brenda, still crying silently, suffers herself to be led to 
the carriage, and together they enter it again, and drive 
away. 

* * Hs * * * :ic 

At luncheon, next day, Brenda is singularly silent. 
Lady Molyneux has fortunately asked few questions about 
last night’s proceedings, and Lord Disney — who'is with 
them — disdains to seek information about anything in 


THAT HIGHT IK JUKE. 


81 




}} 


which Wilding has had a part. Theodore, Brendans broth- 
er, is also present. 

Grandmamma^s indifference is all that can he desired; 
Disney’s sullen silence equally happy; and, in fact, all is 
going merry as a marriage-bell, until Theodore uncon- 
sciously, but fatally, lets fall a bomb-shell that blows the 
blessed calm to atoms. 

‘‘ I say, Brenda, it was well you forgot your latch-key 
last night,” says this misguided youth, with the utmost 
’bonhomie. ‘‘ I found it on the sideboard after you had 
left; and but for it could not have let myself in, as I have 
lost my own.” 

His sister turns very white. 

“ Brenda’s — my latch-key, you mean,” says grandmam- 
ma, quickly. But you dream, Theodore; Brenda had it 
with her at the opera; she herself could not have got in 
without it.” 

Brenda casts an anguished glance at Theodore, who is — 
and, what is worse, looks — distinctly puzzled. 

“ Explain, Brenda. You surely had it,” says grand- 
mamma, in a voice that admits of no evasion. 

Disney, laying down his knife and fork, gazes with half- 
closed eyes at the embarrassed girl. 

“ Had what, grandmamma?” asks she, faintly, to gain 
time. 

‘‘ What? The latch-key. . Are you deaf?” says grand- 
mamma. 

Brenda is silent. Lies are at any time abhorrent to her, 
and now to tell one will be useless, as her hesitation has 
been marked. 


82 


THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


{( 


if 


‘‘Brenda, speak!’’ says grandmamma, in an awful 
tone. “ You had it with you?” 

“Of course she had! What a fuss about nothing. It 
must have been my own 1 found,” breaks in Theodore, 
lying valiantly, but vainly. 

“ I had not, grandmamma,” says Brenda, bravely, but 
in accents hardly intelligible. 

“ Then, pray, how did you come in last night?” 

“ 1 did not come in at all,” replies Brenda, in an agony. 
“ Grandmamma, listen, let me explain' — ” 

But grandmamma is quite past explanation. She has 
risen, and is standing with both her old withered hands 
pressed upon the table, as though to support her under 
this crowning horror, and is glaring at the terrified child 
with fierce, dark eyes. 

“ Am I to understand,” she says, “ that you spent last 
night out of my house?” 

“ If you would let me speak,” says Brenda, sobbing. 

“ Answer me, wretched girl. Were you with your sis- 
ter?” 

“ No. She—” 

“ Not here, nor with your sister, but with George Wild- 
ing, I presume. Hah! . Not another word! I always 
knew what would come of your intimacy with that de- 
graded young man.” 

“ This is all shocking— shocking,” says Lord Disney, in 
his slow, aggravating manner. “And — er ” — brilliantly 
— “ shocking ! Of course. Miss Molyneux, this young man 
— your cousin — having found more favor in your sight 
than 1 have been fortunate enough to find, I beg to resign 


THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


83 


(< 


>> 


my present position, and withdraw from an engagement 
which no doubt is irksome to you. You will pardon me, 
Lady Molyneux, if I say this is all very sad, very sad — 
with an elaborate bow. 

“ Sad! it is disgraceful! Go, girl, to your room, and 
stay there until 1 decide on what shall be done with you. 
My roof shall no longer cover one so lost to all sense of — 

Theodore, rising abruptly, goes to his sister’s side and 
passes his arm round her. 

‘^Look here, grandmamma, stop all that,’’ he says, 
with a frown; ‘‘ it might do at the ^ Duke’s,’ but it is out 
of place here, and I won’t have Brenda abused.” 

Here some one, with a grateful smile, removes his arm 
from Brenda’s waist, and places his own there instead. It 
is George Wilding, who has entered unannounced; just a 
minute or two before a small, plain woman, who appears, 
and stands unnoticed in the door- way, with a pretty swan’s-' 
down cloak and hood upon her arm, that contrasts oddly 
with her own meaner garments. 

“ Who is abusing Brenda?” demands George Wilding, 
looking quietly upon the assembled group, yet with a curi- 
ous light in his eyes that marks him dangerous in his pres- 
ent mood. “ Who is casting even the faintest slur upon 
her? He shall answer to me for it.” 

He stares coldly, and somewhat insolently, at Lord Dis- 
ney as he speaks, and that discreet nobleman, dropping 
his eyeglass, discovers a difficulty in finding it again. 

I’ve made some beastly mistake, you know. It is all 
my fault,” says Theodore, with extreme Contrition. 


84 


"'THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


Here the plain little woman in the door-way, perceiving 
a lull in the conversation, comes timidly forward. 

“ Please, Miss Molyneux, I have brought you your 
opera-cloak,^^ she says, “ as 1 feared you might be want- 
ing it again to-night. 

“ Oh, thank you,^^ says Wilding, turning to her 
promptly. “ Perhaps, Mrs. Fenmore, as you are here, 
you will kindly tell Lady Molyneux of all your goodness to 
Miss Brenda last night. How you took her in, and made 
her very comfortable in your own house, when — because of 
the stupidity of the arrangements in this house — she found 
herself out in the cold; and how you yourself brought her 
safely back here this morning. 

‘‘Oh! I^m sure, my lady,^^ says the coachman’s wife, 
dropping a courtesy, “ I’m only sorry I couldn’t do more 
for Miss Molyneux. I doubt she was desperate uncomfort- 
able, my lady; but I did my best.” 

“What is all this?” says grandmamma. “I fail to 
understand; and riddles are an abomination to me.” 

“ When we found it impossile to ring up your servants, 
and knew the latch-key had been forgotten, I took Brenda 
to Mrs. Fenmore’s house, where, if not exactly in a Bel- 
gravian mansion, she was at least as safe as in the home of 
a duchess,” with a kind bow to Mrs. Fenmore. “ Don’t 
cry, Brenda, tears are too sacred to be wasted on such a 
miserable occasion as the present. ” 

Did Miss Molyneux sleep in your house last night?” 
asks Lady Molyneux, addressing the coachman’s wife, and 
insolently giving Wilding to understand she refuses to 
credit his story unsupported. 


THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


85 


cc 


ff 


Yes, my lady; she came to me a little after twelve 
o’clock, and proud I was, my lady, to be of the least serv- 
ice to her. 1 brought her back myself this morning, 
which 1 hope, miss” — respectfully to Brenda — ‘‘you 
didn’t catch cold, and are none the worse for your strange 
bed; which Fenmore do say that change of sheets at any 
time is most dangerous.” 

“I am quite well, and I thank you very much, Mrs.^ 
Fenmore,” says Brenda, in a stifled tone. As her face is 
pressed against George’s gray coat, this is hardly cause for 
wonder. 

“As for you, sir,” says Wilding, turning to the discom- 
fited lord, “ having heard you with my own ears decline 
the honor of an alliance with this young lady, I beg to tell 
you it was just as well you did so — it saves trouble, as she 
had not the smallest intention of marrying you. ” 

“ Sir I” exclaims the aristocratic fossil, taking fire at 
this insult. 

“ No, sir, not the smallest,” repeats Wilding, con- 
temptuously; “ she has the good — I mean, of course, the 
bad — taste to prefer me, which, after all, when one comes 
to think of it, is only natural. What bond could there 
be between May and December?” 

“ Brenda — ” begins grandmamma, with much wrath. 

“ Go and put on your things, Brenda,” interrupts 
George, sternly. “ I shall take you to your sister. Go, 
my love,” in a fond whisper to the trembling girl, who at 
the word escapes gladly from the room. “You, madame, 
have behaved infamously to her,” goes on George, deter- 
mined to carry things with a high hand. “ And when you 


8G 


'"THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 




said she should never sleep another night beneath your 
roof, you spoke the truth. Jose will receive her, and she 
shall stay with her until I marry her. I will not have her 
heart broken. If you wish to apologize to her for this 
morning’s conduct, you can see her at Cromwell Eoad.” 

Having made this galling suggestion, he has the good 
sense to beat an instant retreat. 

“ 1 must say I think you deserve every bit of it,” says 
Theodore to this stricken granddame. “ You have acted 
toward Brenda for the last two years like a regular old 
Tartar, and here’s the end of it.” 

‘‘ Leave the room, you wicked boy,” commands grand- 
mamma, in a shrill tone; and Theodore for once obliges 
her, more, 1 think, because he wishes to go than from any 
high sense of duty. 

‘‘ And I have always borne with that boy, and humored 
him in every respect,” says Lady Molyneux, mopping her 
eyes indignantly. “To say I deserved such treatment; 

“ I can’t help saying I agree with Theodore,” says Lord 
Disney, solemnly, with aggravating slowness. 

“ Ell !” says grandmamma, instantly putting down the 
handkerchief, and turning to face the enemy with renewed 
vigor, as she scents hostility in a fresh and unexpected 
quarter. 

“Yes, yes! You have acted abominably,” goes on 
Disney, who is evidently not afraid of an old woman. 
“ You have accused that charming young iMy, your 
granddaughter, of an indiscretion she would scorn to com- 


THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


87 


(< 


yy 


mit. You have jumped at conclusions, and it^s — it^s — it^s 
execrable form, madame, to jump at conclusions.^^ 

“ ‘ Form!’ ” says grandmamma, witheringly; “ what is 
it you mean by that? Is it the ‘ human form divine ’ you 
are mumbling about? or is it slang you are using? If so, 
I think it most unbecoming in any one of oui' age to ape 
the vile manners of the present day.” 

This is a cruel shaft; and the elderly beau, in spite of 
Poole, and Hoby, and Eimmel, winces perceptibly. 

“ You should have investigated matters before going too 
far,” says he, somewhat depressed. 

‘‘So should you,” retorts she; “you were in a vast 
hurry, methinks, to relinquish your bride.” 

“ I blame you for it all,” returns he, fiercely. 

“Tut, man! Don’t think 1 care for either your blame 
or censure,” says this indomitable old dame, regarding 
him scornfully. “ George Wilding will marry her now, 
and that puts a finish to it. xVnd I’m not sure I’m not 
glad^ of it. Demanding your pardon, Disney, I begin to 
think he is the better man of the two?” 

“ Your opinion, madame, is, of course, indisputable,” 
with a low bow. “ But yet I flatter myself your grand- 
daughter was willing enough to become Lady Disney, un- 
til you — ” 

“ Did you ever hear of young Lochinvar?” asks grand- 
mamma, with a maddening cackle; “ it reminds me some- 
what of your case. And what was that George Wilding 
said about ‘ May and December?’ Ha — ha — good, very 
good!’^ 


88 


^^THAT NIGHT IN JUNE. 


ff 


“ You are an odious old woman says my lord, losing 
all patience. 

Eh! — whereas your vaunted manners, Disney? your 
courtly bow — your incomparable smile? I will trouble you 
to leave this room this instant, says she, striking her 
gold-headed cane upon the floor with considerable force. 

‘‘ I obey you, madame, willingly; and now take my 
leave of it, and of the house, and of you too, 1 hope, for- 
ever,” returns he, furiously. 

And, striding up the room and through the hall, passes 
beyond the portals of No. 7 — never to return. 


THE END. 


A WRONG TURNING. 


BY THE “DUCHESS.” 


“ Deae fellow! so glad to see you! But what a godless 
hour to arrive at. After twelve! You must he frozen!’^ 
cries Oswald Travers, all in one breath, as he rushes down 
the stone steps to welcome his cousin. “ Here, Higgins,^^ 
to the butler, “see to Captain Dugdale^s luggage. By 
Jove! what a night !^^ 

“ Couldn^t come a second sooner, says Dugdale, 
springing from the dog-cart and shaking the snow from 
his shoulders. “ Thought up to the last I shouldn’t be 
able to come at all. As it is, I’ve run it rather fine, eh? 
This is the 23d, and—” 

“ The 24th, my good friend; Christmas-eve already. 
Here, come along, you must be positively famished.” 

“ Well, I could eat something,” says Dugdale, laugh- 
ing, and following him into the grand old hall, still ablaze 
with lights, and, with two roaring fires in it that seem de- 
termined to defy the wintery cold without. 

Sir George and the mater, and all the respectable 
members of the household, are in bed,” says Oswald, the 
eldest son of the name. “ The more frivolous ones are 
still in the billiard-room. But we can give them a wide 
berth for this night, at all events, as I expect you are 


00 


A WRONG TURNING. 


tired; and, besides, I want' a word or two with you alone. 
My father had quite given you up — you are so late. Come 
along, and let me show you your room while they are pre- 
paring some supper for you. Higgins, which is Captain 
Dugdale’s room?'^ 

“ Blue chamber, sir, east wing.^^ 

“ All right. I say, old man,^^ says Oswald, apologetic- 
ally, stopping midway upstairs to look back at llis cousin, 
“ I hope you won^t mind, but you know what Sir George 
is at Christmas-time. He will ask everybody all at once, 
and this time he has so outdone himself that we have been 
obliged to double-bed some of the larger rooms. They\e 
put one of the young Ormsbys into yours; a quiet lad, 
nineteen or so, steady, respectable, warranted not to bite, 
but rather a bore for you, nevertheless, I^m afraid. 

“ Warranted not to snore would be more to the pur- 
pose, says Dugdale, laughing. 

“ At all events, it will only be for a day or two, as the 
Ponsonbys and the Blakes leave directly after Christmas. 
I^m awfully sorry about it, but you know my father is in- 
corrigible — never happy unless he has the house in an 
overflowing state. We have even had to put some of the 
girls in rooms with two beds to get space for the others. 

“ Well, it’s large enough to admit of half a dozen 
beds,” says Dugdale, good-naturedly, as he enters the blue 
chamber and warms his hands thankfully before the huge 
fire burning in the grate. As he speaks he looks round 
him; it is, indeed, a charming room, handsomely fur- 
nished and as comfortable as the soul of man could desire. 
The extra bed, with hanging curtains of pale blue, to 


A WRONCt TURNIN'G. 


91 


match the rest of the furniture, has been pushed into a 
corner, so as to take as little as possible from the grandeur 
of the “ regular bedstead that stands with its back up 
against the central wall of the apartment, as though re- 
senting the intrusion of the foreigner. 

Well, hurry up, and let^s get down to the dining- 
room,’-’ says Oswald; I’ve a lot to say to you.” 

So much, indeed, that the night is far advanced before 
his say is said; the fact that he has lately become engaged 
to the ‘‘ dearest girl in the world ” having a good deal to 
do with this protracted conversation. Three o’clock has 
struck, and the distant sounds of merriment that reached 
them from the billiard-room have long since died into 
nothingness, when at length Dick Dugdale, rising from his 
chair, declares with a yawn that sleep has mastered him. 

He is a tall, lean, soldierly young man of about twenty- 
nine, with a singularly handsome face, and a skin browned 
by India’s suns. He has, indeed, only just returned from 
the East — a good deal the slighter for his sojourn there — 
and being heart-whole, and next heir to a baronetcy, has 
been, during the past week, the subject of some specula- 
tion among the women assembled at IVavers Court. 

You won’t lose your way, will you?” says Oswald, as 
he bids him good-night on coming to a landing where their 
roads separate. You know the house too well for that.” 

“ I should,’^ says Dugdale, laughing. This house has 
been my home too often to let a few years destroy all 
memory of it.” 

He goes softly down the corridor that leads to his room, 
calling out a last subdued good-night, and walking deli- 


92 


A WEONG TURNING. 


cately as Agag might, lest he should disturb the slum- 
berers on either hand. A vague suspicion that perhaps 
after all he doesnH know his own room as well as he had 
believed, rouses a mingled sense of consternation and 
amusement in his mind, so that when he comes to his door 
he opens it cautiously and not without a certain sense of 
.trepidation. 

All right, however! The large chamber presents itself 
do him in colors blue as the sky; the fire still burns as 
cheerily upon the hearth as it did three hours ago. Capi- 
tal servants the Travers always have kept, by the way; un- 
less, indeed, the present glowing furnace is to be attributed 
to the zeal of his sleeping partner in this room. By the 
way, what sort is he? 

Flinging the coat he has just taken off upon a chair near 
him, he turns his gaze upon the bed at the furthest end of 
dhe room — the bed in the corner; the bed appropriated to 
•the steady, quiet, respectable, nineteen-year-old lad, war- 
ranted not to bite, of whom Oswald had spoken in such 
glowing terms, to find it — empty. Mechanically he directs 
his attention upon the bed proper to find it — full ! 

Why, confound that Ormsby boy! Was there ever such 
impertinence — such sybaritish selfishness? His heart, 
however, melts within him as he gazes upon what there is 
to be seen of this model of iniquity. What a small head! 
with what a wealth of curling hair! A mere boy it must 
be, in sore want of a barber. 

A timid boy, too, evidently afraid of ghosts or such like 
midnight visitants, as he has tucked the- clothes right 
round his head, and almost over his head. A mere child 


A WRONG TURNING. 


93 


he must be, with brows as white as that, and with breath- 
ing so soft, so noiseless, that one might well believe him 
dead. 

Dead! Dugdale had heard of corpses being discovered 
in double-bedded rooms before this; it is, indeed, quite an 
orthodox good old story; but to have it come home to him 
in this abrupt way is not half so pleasant as the mild im- 
agining of it. To read of a tragedy is one thing; to be 
mixed up with it is quite another. 

Taking up the candle, he advances quickly toward the 
bed, and looks down upon the owner of those short brown 
curls. 

Great Heaven! what is this? By a miracle alone Dug- 
dale prevents the candlestick from falling with a crash to 
the floor; by a miracle, too, he represses the exclamation 
that rises to his lips. The steady, respectable Ormsby boy, 
“ warranted not to bite,^^ has resolved himself into— a 
girl ! 

And such a lovely girl, too! The little, pretty, soft, 
disheveled curls, brown as hazel-nuts, are lying on a fore- 
head white as Parian marble. The rounded cheeks are 
flushed with sleep^s fond heat, the long dark lashes lying 
on them making a tender contrast with the crimson 
ground beneath; the lips, red as cherries ripe, are softly, 
indolently closed. It occurs to him that they might open 
.at any moment, and then — 

Well, then! not the lips, but the eyes open. Large, 
dark eyes, heavy with slumber scarcely broken, and for an 
instant they gaze straight up at him, vaguely troubled — 
softly uncertain. Dp to this point Dugdale has been 


94 


A WEONG TURlsIKG. 


rooted to the spot. To say that he is filled with amaze- 
ment would be but to give a poor explanation of his feel- 
ings, that he is frightened to death would be far nearer to 
it. Now, seeing those half-conscious eyes on his, he gives 
way altogether. 

Hastily extinguishing the tell-tale candle, he makes a 
dash for his coat, and then for the door, and rushes blind- 
ly down the now dark corridor. Toward the end, seeing a 
light gleaming from one of the apartments, he makes for 
it in desperation, and — yes — thank Heaven, there are two 
beds here also, the room is distinctly blue; he must have 
found his haven at last. 

Sinking into a chair, he presses his hand to his forehead, 
and listens with all his might. Will she scream? rouse 
the house? Has she mistaken him for a burglar? Or — 
blessed hope! — has she been so little awakened that his 
rapid exit may have left her under the impression that all 
she saw was but the outcome of a dream? 

Somewhat relieved by this thought, he prepares once 
more for bed. This time, at all events, he has made no 
mistake; the loud and healthy snores that come from the 
couch in the corner preclude the smallest possibility of 
doubt. All then may yet be well. That one hasty glance 
of hers could have told her nothing, and there is no other 
clew. Placing his fingers in his waistcoat pocket to take 
out his watch, he at once grows rigid with consternation 
and a look of horror overspreads his face! His watch! 
He has left it behind him! It is probably at this moment 
ticking away — with quite disgraceful indifference to its 
owner ^s agony — upon table! Alas! for that dream 


A WRONG TURNING. 


95 


theory of his I Dreams come and go, but leave nothing 
tangible behind them. 

% ^ ^ % 

“ I say, whereas Lilian?^^ asks Oswald, looking up from 
the game-pie he is discussing. “ Not like her to be late. ” 

‘‘No; she is generally up to time,^^ says Lady Eattle- 
ton, a lively looking blonde, casting a sharp glance all 
round the breakfast-table. “ She didn^t like that beating 
you gave her at billiards last night, perhaps, or else for 
once in her life she is lazy. 

“ Wrong in both surmises,^^ says Lady Travers, glanc- 
ing from behind the huge silver urn, as the door opens, 
and a little slight girl, almost child-like in face and form, 
comes into the room. Very nervously she comes forward, 
changing from white to red, and from red back again to 
white, as she does so. “ Well, Lily, come at last, dear?^^ 

Dugdale’s heart gives a big jump. That pretty head, 
with its short, nut-brown curls, harmless as it seems, 
strikes terror to his soul. He grows almost vehement in 
his attentions to his left-hand- neighbor — a gaunt old maid 
with spectacles. Anything rather than meet the eyes of 
this little hesitating new-comer. 

“Glad youVe come, Lilian. We were just going to 
have the lake dragged.’^ 

“ Eeally, Miss Englethorpe, you should give us notice 
when you intend to retire into private life. The anxiety 
we have undergone up to this would — 

“ Slept it out, Lil?^^ questions her brother, a tall 
guardsman, who is at the sideboard busy with a ham. 

“ She looks rather as if she hadnT slept at all,’^ says 


96 


A WRONG TURNING. 


Sir George Travers, her kindly host, drawing a chair up 
close to his own, and beckoning her to come to him. 

“ That room is haunted,^^ says Augusta, the eldest 
daughter of the house; I warned you about it, Lil. 
Well, what did you see? Who entered your room last 
night? Let us hear the ghastly details?'^ 

Poor Miss Englethorpe! Dugdale’s heart dies within 
him as he sees the cruel crimson that, rising, colors her 
cheeks. 

“By Jove! I think you’ve hit it,” says her brother,, 
mightily amused by this blush. (Brothers are such 
brutes!) 

“ Come, tell us, Lily! The actual person who sees a 
ghost is so much preferable to the person who knows 
somebody else who has seen a ghost. Was it a man?” 

Good-breeding so far stands to Miss Englethorpe that,, 
though now deadly pale, she refuses further to betray her- 
self. As for Dugdale, gazing on that brave little face, ho 
feels as if he must rise and say something. But what ? 
That is the question that reduces him to absolute nothing- 
ness. 

“ Had he his head under his arm?” persists Lady Rat- 
tleton, with the loud laugh that is commonly, and rather 
justly, supposed to proclaim the vacant mind. 

“Or a dripping sword, perchance,” says the guards- 
man, who, being her brother, is of course the last man in 
the world to ever dream of looking at her. 

“ Come, come, come,” cries Sir George, quickly. “ A 
truce to all such idle jests. Can’t you see that the little 
one has a headache? A cup of tea for her, Oswald, that 


A WRONG TURNING. 


97 


will exorcise the demon, 1 hope! Have you seen the last 
about these -Whitechapel murders? Eh? — eh? Such a 
disgrace as they are to civilization.^' And so on. The 
good old host compels them all to follow him far away 
from Miss Englethorpe and her worries. 

“ Now, once for all, we must be in time to decorate the 
church, says Augusta Travers presently, who is com- 
monly supposed to be an admirer of the rector^ s — a hap- 
py, un — married man! “We have only this one clear 
day before us, and weTl hardly get our work through be- 
fore Christmas dawns. 

“ What hour are we to meet at the church?^’ 

“ Half past eleven, sharp. 

“ And it is now — By Jove! what is it, now,, by any- 
thing reliable ?^^ asks Oswald, staring at the clock on the 
mantel-piece, that points stolidly to twenty past two. 
“ That clock has gone down. I say, Dugdale, you are the 
last comer from the seat of war; give us the news — the 
time."" 

We have all heard of the word “ limp."" It, and it 
only, describes Dugdale at this moment. 

“Eh?"" says he, with a view to gaining time. An 
awful consciousness that two large brown eyes are at this 
instant fixed upon him renders him almost paralyzed. 

“ My dear fellow, straight from town as you are, you 
can of course give us the right time. "" 

“ There you overrate my sti’ength,"" says Dugdale, re- 
covering himself by a supreme effort. . “ The fact is, I 
was so tu-ed last night that I forgot to wind my watch, 

4 


98 


A WRONG TURNING. 


and when I looked at iy:his morning 1 found it had mean- 
ly run down. So sorry 

He quite forgets to hope that Heaven will forgive him 
this pious fib in his anxiety to see how she has taken it. 
She has evidently taken it most satisfactorily. The white 
and frightened face that was turned on him a moment 
since now looks half relieved. That “ I looked at it this 
morning had been very clever; she had accepted it as 
the noble truth. She is still timid, unnerved, but her 
glances are no longer directed specially toward him; they 
are divided among the other men sitting all round the 
table. 

As they rise from the latter, Augusta comes up to Dug- 
dale. 

1 think you and Miss Englethorpe are the two people 
unknown to each other here,^^ says she. “ That should 
be a bond of union between you,^^ she laughs, the little 
unctuous laugh peculiar to stout people, and introduces 
Dugdale to Lilian. 

“Now donT be half a century getting into your walk- 
ing things, says she to Miss Englethorpe. “ You have a 
big day's work before you in the church. Persuade Cap- 
tain Dugdale to give you his assistance and you will make 
the parish your friend forever." 

At this. Miss Englethorpe says a word or two as in duty 
bound, and Captain Dugdale answers her. The result be- 
ing that the former finds herself behind a pair of ponies 
half an hour later with the latter holding the reins. This 
conjunction brings them speedily to the church doors. 


A WRONG TURNING. 


99 


where divers spoken plans for celebrating Christmas are 
making the air loud. 

Miss Englethorpe, being of an energetic turn of mind, 
soon separates herself from the idle members of the flock 
and gives herself up to the working section thereof. 

Holly, ivy and certain hot-house plants sent in from the 
conservatories around are scattered profusely about the 
altar and all down the aisles. The rector, clad in dis- 
tinctly mundane garments, is moving about briskly from 
pillar to post, giving instructions to the unlearned — a large 
class. 

Quite toward the end of the afternoon Miss Engle- 
thorpe, finding herself alone at the base of the pulpit with 
an ivy wreath in her hands that cries aloud for some rest- 
ing-place, looks round her and sees at a distance Dugdale. 
He is coming toward her, and smiles as he meets her eyes, 
but what is there about him that kills the answering smile 
that had risen to her lips? Dugdale gives a hasty side- 
glance at himself and finds he is in his shirt-sleeves — hav- 
ing flung off his coat awhile ago to go to work with a 
greater zeal. Good lieavens! he was in his shirt-sleeves 
that last, that first time she saw him! Could it be possi- 
ble that a remembrance of that unfortunate moment is 
slowly wakening within her? What if she should ever 
arrive at a certainty about that fatal mistake of his? 

Making a hasty snatch at his coat, he flings that un- 
offending garment over the tell-tale shirt with quite an 
angry air, and turns once more to Miss Englethorpe. 

“ Now, what can 1 do for you?^^ says he, with as un- 


100 


A WKONG TURNING. 


concerned a manner as he can assume at so short a notice, 
and with his heart beating to such a violent degree. 

Nothing, thank you,^^ returns she, icily, moving 
abruptly away, and then, as if ashamed of her petulance, 
or not knowing positively that she has reason for it, she 
looks round at him. “ Well, there is this,^^ she says, with 
hesitation, glancing at her wreath; “ where shall I put 
it?^’ 

1^11 show you,^' says he, briskly, a weight lifted from 
his heart. After all she does not know. And what a 
lovely face it is that now is looking into his, not, however, 
without a strange suppressed anxiety, that might be 
called doubt, visible in it. 

To combat this doubt he makes the object of his life for 
the next half hour, and has congratulated himself that he 
has succeeded, when suddenly Miss Englethorpe puts hope 
on that subject to flight. 

“ What o^clock is it?^^ asks she, so nervously that it is 
impossible not to notice her agitation. Dugdale makes a 
laudable effort to conquer the situation, and fumbles in 
the pocket where that confounded watch should be as 
thoroughly as though he honestly believes it is there to be 
found. 

“ Oh, by Jove! of course/* says he, I forgot I hadn^t 
wound it last night, and that it still lies on my table. Let 
me tell you a secret, speaking very carefully, but rather 
fast. “ I am one of those fellows, you know, who hate a 
watch and never wear ^em, if they can get out of it.-’^ 

“ No, 1 don’t know any of them,” says Miss Engle- 
thorpe, slowly. He can feel her eyes upon his face, and 


A WRONG TURNING. 


101 


after a swift glance knows that they are full of tears, 
frightened, shamed tears! Her whole soul is in these anx- 
ious eyes, and he understands instinctively that it is the 
uncertainty of it all that is so terribly distressing to her. 
He feels like a murderer as he sees the tears, and he feels 
too, with greater justice, that he is developing into a most 
consummate liar. 

“ Well, now you know one/^ says he, with what he tells 
himself is quite an awful sprightliness. A watch to me 
is a bore, hardly to be endured. Just now and again it is 
a useful thing, 1 dare say, but as a rule — I should not 
wonder, for instance, if you never saw me with mine the 
whole time 1 am here.^^ 

“ What a pity! Is — is it a nice watch asks Miss En- 
glethorpe, with what he is pleased to see somewhat re- 
covered spirits. 

“ Far from it,"*^ promptly. “ Beastly old thing; silver. 
My father gave it to me or I shouldn’t carry it with me at 
all.” 

Alas! for the generosity of that good father, whose gift 
had most assuredly been golden. 

But Lilian (he has already, even at this early stage of 
their acquaintance, begun to so designate her) is for the 
time satisfied, and what is a father in comparison with a 
pretty girl? For the rest of the evening everything goes 
smoothly between her and Dugdale, and the next day, 
Christmas-day, passes without a hitch, and is indeed re- 
membered by both long afterward as having been the hap- 
piest they had ever spent. If at times Miss Englethorpe 
feels little icy thrills of fear stealing over her as she thinks 


102 


A WRONG TURNING. 


of that watch lying perdu beneath her laces upstairs (she 
had been afraid to put it in her jewel-case, the girls in the 
house having quite a mania for overhauling that charming 
receptacle), she resolutely puts such fears behind her, and, 
with as good courage as she can, enjoys the present. 
Sooner or later she knows she will have to stand face to 
face with her midnight visitor, will have to return that 
watch, and thereby bring utter confusion upon her head; 
but until then, let her be happy. Her one devout prayer, 
incessantly breathed, is — that whoever it is that terrible 
apparition may resolve itself into, it will not be Dugdale. 
Oh, no, not Captain Dugdale; any one but him; and sure- 
ly, it couldnH be he. She has his own word for it, or 
nearly so. His watch — that mysterious one he hates so 
much, that seemingly no man has ever yet seen — is silver, 
while hers — that is — his — that is — the wretches — is gold! 
No; he, Captain Dugdale, would not willfully deceive her, 
and yet — Always an unwelcome doubt remains behind. 

Aid to this doubt is given from the most unexpected 
sources. Human spite has "nothing to do with it, as no 
one can possibly know anything about the fiasco save she 
and — that other. Some impalpable imp must have taken 
it in hand, and found its pleasure in tormenting her. 
The first shock had come at that memorable breakfast; 
the second, when she had seen Dugdale for the first time 
{was it the first time?) in his shirt-sleeves in the church; 
the third arose out of the tableaux vivants that the Tra- 
vers girls would get up. These doubts have all to do with 
Dugdale, but besides these she is harassed with specula- 
tions as to other guests in the house. Dugdale apparently 


A WRONG TURNING. 


103 


is not the only one who does not possess, or can^t at all 
events produce, a watch. The Hon. Bertie Lightwood, a 
near-sighted little mortal, more dead than alive, never 
wears one, and George Hardup, a stalwart dragoon, says 
he has left his in town to be repaired.^’ 

In the tableaus it so happens that Miss Englethorpe and 
Captain Dugdale are cast for the scene from Tennyson^s 
“ Sleeping Beauty, where the latter is roused from her 
sleep of a hundred years by a kiss from the wandering 
prince. The other tableaus had gone off pretty well. 
Lady Eattleton indeed, as Diana Vernon, had scored a dis- 
tinct success, and Oswald Travers with fiancee, a gentle 
little thing, with intelligent eyes, were very well thought 
of as “Una and the Lion;^^ there had indeed been some 
difficulty about the get-up of Oswald as that remarkable 
beast — he was the lion — but when he had been smothered 
in two bear, three opossum, and one leopard-skin, he was 
considered a very creditable article indeed. He was at all 
events unique of his kind, and that is everything. 

But a little whisper has got about that “ The Sleeping 
Beauty ’Ms to be the event of the evening, and now, as 
the curtain slowly (and with several heart-stirring checks), 
rises, rumor for the third or fourth time proves true. Be- 
yond all doubt Miss Englethorpe is a beauty! Every man 
in the room, and even a few women, acknowledge this un- 
deniable fact. 

Lying there upon the crimson-covered couch in her deli- 
cate white robes, with her nut-brown curls nestling among 
the red velvet of the cushions, Lilian Englethorpe looks 
lovely as a happy dream. The exquisite face is colorless. 


104 


A WRONG TURNING. 


save for the scarlet lips and the dark lashes lying on the 
oval cheek. Had that dead-past beauty of olden time, so 
dear to fairy lore and poets, been half so fair as this her 
modern representative, no wonder the Prince lost his head, 
but gained his courage, and made her his by that revivify- 
ing kiss! 

So thinks Dugdale, as, compelled by his part — but yet a 
very willing servant — he bends over her. How sweet she 
looks! How kind! Yet if she knew all, would she not 
spurn him? All — yet how little! How delicately the 
lashes lie upon that perfect cheek! Oh! that the curtain 
might stay up forever! Oh! that he dared, as did that 
old-world lover, to stoop and kiss and wake her into a 
new life — a life of love for him! 

The curtain, however, like time, takes heed of no man. 
Down it comes with a little bang; so suddenly that Dug- 
dale, lost in his trance of admiration, forgets all about it. 
It is only when the large dark eyes open and look straight 
up into his impassioned ones that the fact of its descent 
dawns upon him. That fact, and another too. With a 
little sharp exclamation. Miss Englethorpe springs to her 
feet, flings back the crimson coverings that had partially 
covered her, and for a moment stands pale, defiant, hor- 
ror-stricken before him. What is she thinking of? What 9 
It seems to him in the midst of his consternation that he 
knows ! Again, he sees himself in that blue chamber look- 
ing down upon the sleeping girl. Again she wakes. 
Again her eyes uplift themselves to his— as they do now. 

Miss Englethorpe has taken a step nearer to him; she has 
lifted her hand as though she would have spoken to him. 


A WKONG TURNING. 


105 


There is in the strange deep glance of her eyes something 
of absolute agony. Her lips part. 

All at once she turns aside, her hand falls to her side, 
and abruptly, nay brusquely, she passes him by, and dis- 
appears by the amateur wing. 

Dugdale, who has grown a little pale, is the only one 
left to receive the plaudits of the assembled county. 

♦ ♦ % » ^ :ic ^ 

She puts in no appearance at breakfast next morning, 
and Dugdale^s heart sinks lower within him (if that be 
possible). Late in the afternoon, at the five-o^clock tea, 
that seems to delight everybody, but at which She (really 
he has begun to regard her, so far as name is concerned, 
almost as the heroine of Mr. Haggard^s novel) is also ab- 
sent, and strolling leisurely into the library where this mild 
dissipation is, as a rule, carried out to its bitter end, Dug- 
dale becomes aware of that crushing fact. He has hardly 
had his own cup, however, which neither cheers nor in- 
ebriates him, when a door opening on his left causes him 
to turn. 

Yes, it is she. But a very pale and nervous she. A 
“ she,^^ too, fighting evidently against odds, that are of a 
spiritual nature and not open to the public. Dugdale, 
looking at her, feels puzzled. - 

His ignorance, however, is of short continuance. Miss 
Englethorpe has not been two minutes in the room when 
somebody— Lady Kattleton, of course— says loudly: 

“ Whose watch is this?^’ As she speaks she lifts a gold 
watch from a small table at her elbow, with chain at- 
tached, and holds it up, as if for auction, to those around. 


106 


A WKONG TUENING. 


Dugdale’s heart grows still. That it is his watch goes 
without telling. That she, unable longer to endure the 
suspense, unable, too, to retain so valuable an article, has 
at last decided on braving the worst, is clear to him. She 
had come in, had laid that vile time-piece upon the table, 
unseen by any one, and now, when all the guests are as- 
sembled, is waiting to learn — the truth. 

Well, she sha^nT hear it from him, at all events. 

“A fine thing! a very fine thing! And who is the 
owner of this fine thing?^^ cries Lady Rattletori in her 
shrill tones, dangling the watch to and fro, and challeng- 
ing all men present. “Yours, Oswald? No? Yours, 
Mr. Lightwood? Yours, Sir George?^^ to her host. 
“No, really^ It looks like an heir-loom. Well, come, it 
must be yours. Captain Dugdale. 

For a moment Dugdale hesitates; it is a hesitation so 
slight as to be almost unfel :; but in the most infinitesmal 
space of time quite a train of thoughts can present them- 
selves. If he repudiates the watch now he can never 
claim it again, and it is an old friend, the companion of 
many a year, and dear to him, as inanimate things some- 
times will be. But not to deny all knowledge of it, with 
those large searching eyes gazing at him from the other 
end of the room, waiting breathlessly as it seems for his 
answer, is impossible to him". 

“ Mine? No,^^ says he, shaking his he^, with a smile. 

“ Must belong to some of the other fellows. They^ll claim 
it when they come in,^^ says Oswald, indifferently, as Lady 
Eattleton puts back the watch on the table where she had 
found it. Dugdale breathes more freely, and lets his 


A WROl^G TURNING. 


107 


glance turn to where Lilian has but just been standing. 
She has gone into the embrasure of the window, however, 
and is sitting there on a pile of cushions, chatting with ap- 
parent gayety with a young man, who is holding a tea-cup 
for her. She has not disbelieved him, then? Once again 
he has escaped detection. Surely she could not laugh like 
that if she doubted. Yet — strange perversity! he almost 
wishes she had doubted, that she knew, that it was all 
over, and she had forgiven him. A growing dislike to the 
young man to whom she is making herself so agreeable, 
mingled with a sort of discomfort, hardly to be placed, in- 
duces him to leave the gay party round the tea-table and 
wander somewhat aimlessly into the music-room, a charm- 
ing apartment, hung with pale-pink cretonne, and with a 
huge bow-window facing south. 

At this hour of the day it is sure to be deserted and free 
from fear of chance visitors. Glad in this thought. Dug- 
dale stands moodily in the window, chewing the cud of 
several bitter thoughts, when a light but hurried step be- 
hind causes him to turn. Who can be coming now? 

It seems to him that he hardly knows her, as she stops 
short before him, her lips parted and her breath coming 
^ and going so rapidly that it almost appears to hurt her. 
Her agitation is so extreme that involuntarily he puts out 
his hand as though to support her, but she shrinks from 
him. 

“ Here,^^ she says. Take it. There is no reason you 
should lose it because — because of me!^^ 

It is his watch she is offering him! Losing his head a 
little — his agitation now being even greater than her own 


108 


A WRONG TURNING. 


— he would once more have denied all knowledge of it; 
but she restrains him. 

“ Oh, no, no, No!^^ she cries, with sudden, intense pas- 
sion. “ Do not say it again. It is useless. \ know I 1 
think I have known it all along. 

She places the watch upon an ottoman near her, and 
makes a movement toward the door. ^ Something tells him 
that if she goes now it will be forever. With a touch of 
desperation in his manner he gets before her, and places 
his back against the door. 

‘‘ Do not go like this,^^ says he, his face as white as her 
own. “ Let me say a word or two. Just hear me! After 
all, what was it? Lilian, let me speak. 

He has put out both his hands and tried to take hers, 
but with a sharp little gesture she repulses him, and then 
— all at once as it were — she covers her face and breaks 
into a wild and bitter fit of crying; not loud sobs, but low 
and heavy, that shake all her slender frame. Turning 
abruptly from him, as though ashamed of this uncon- 
trollable outburst, she hurries behind the curtains of the 
window, and leaning against the wood-work, cries as de- 
spairingly as a broken-hearted child. 

‘‘ Is it worth such grief as this?^’ says Dugdale, misera- 
bly, following her into the embrasure of the window. “ It 
was only a mistake, when all is told. Mine — and an inex- 
cusable one if you will — but not worth one of these cruel 
tears. I can^t think lioio it happened; how I was so 
stupid, but — 

“ DonT speak of it. I canT bear it,^^ cries she, with a 
stamp of her small foot. 


A WRONG TURNING. 


109 


‘‘Far better speak of it and be done with it forever/’ 
says Dugdale. “ You have been making a mountain out 
of a mere mole-hill, and if you won’t let me show it to you 
as it really is, you will go on being miserable about it al- 
ways. ” 

“ Very well; I’d rather be miserable,” says Miss Engle- 
thorpe from behind her handkerchief, “ though,” with 
another sob, “ if I am to be as miserable as this always, I 
shall soon die; that’s one comfort.” 

“ Not to me,” says Dugdale. “ Have you no pity for 
me? Do you think / have suffered nothing? That every 
nervous glance of yours has not been an agony to me? If 
I deserved punishment for my offense, which truly was an 
innocent one, why! I have endured it a thousand times. 
If you could forgive me now — if — ” 

“Oh! if it had been anyone but you!” says she, so 
naively, with such an unconscious betrayal of her real feel- 
ing for him that Dugdale’s heart beats high. Emboldened 
by this veiled admission, he very gently takes her in his 
arms, and presses her head down upon his shoulder. 

“ Why, if it had been, so much the worse,” says he, 
quickly. “ You and I can keep the secret to ourselves, 
can we not? Lilian, may I tell you now what you surely 
know already, but what I want so badly to put into words! 
I love you! Darling, darling, do you think you can like 
me — enough — to marry me?” 

“ Well, if it hadn’t been for that,” says she, despond- 
ently; but considering she turns to him instead of fro7n 
him as she makes this disheartening speech, Dugdale is 
not so much crushed by it as he ought to have been. 


110 


A WKOl^G TUENING. 


“If it hadn’t been, you could have liked me?” asks he, 
gently. 

“ Oh, what’s the good of talking of it now f’” says she, 
with a heavy sigh. 

“ Not much,” says Dugdale, mournfully. “ But just 
for argument’s sake, answer me.” 

“ Well — yes,” reluctantly. 

“ Then,” says Dugdale, with a base descent into ordi- 
nary gladness, “ I shall insist on your liking me now, too, 
in spite of that unfortunate — ” 

“Oh!” cries she, hastily, “don’t mind that.” She 
lifts one hand and lays it on his lips. “ It is something 
else I want to talk to you about. Do you think, a — that 
is — that one person could ever love another person, when 
those two persons have only seen each other for ten days?” 

“ If you and I are those two persons — yes,” says Dug- 
dale, with deep conviction. 

“ It is a very short time,” says she, doubtfully. 

“ The man who could see you for ten days and be still 
insensible to — Well, never mind him, he would be be- 
neath contempt,” says Dugdale. “As for me, the very 
first time I ever saw you — ” 

“ Oh, don’t!” says she, hiding her face on his breast. 

“ On our very first introduction — ” 

“ Dick, if you insist on talking about that — I — I luonH 
marry you,” says she, indignantly. 

“ And if I don’t, you will?” 

“ Oh, jou-lcnow it,” says she, so shyly, so sweetly, that 
he feels earth has no more to ofier him. 


A WKONG TURN'ING. 


Ill 


‘‘ And now, not another tear,^^ says he, presently, when 
their raptures and explanations, and all the blessed vows 
that lovers from time immemorial have given and taken, 
have been gone through. “ Here, take my handkerchief; 
yours is wet through. (Bless me, what ridiculous things 
girls use, to be sure.) Not another tear shall you shed all 
your life through if I can prevent it. But there is one 
thing that has always puzzled me. May I ask you about 
it?^" 

‘‘ Is — is it about — that nervously. 

“Yes. I want to know why both the rooms were 
blue?’" 

“ That was Augusta’s fault. She liked the old room so 
much — yours, that she had another done up like it — mine! 
I — I wish she hadn’t.” 

“ Well, I don’t,” says Dugdale. “ One of the sweetest 
recollections of my life will be of a little soft brown curly 
head lying — ” 

Here Miss Englethorpe makes such a desperate effort to 
escape from his encircling arms, that he has to break off 
in the middle of his enthusiastic memories to circumvent 
her. 

“ Well, 1 won’t — 1 swear it!” declares he. “ Not an- 
other word on the subject shall pass my lips until we are 
such an ancient Darby and Joan that it will seem like a 
dream to us. ” 

“ Now, you PROMISE, mind,” says she, and then pauses, 
so evidently full of a desire to say something else, that in- 
stinctively he says: 


112 


A WRONG TURNING. 


Welir’ 

“ There is just one thing that has troubled me most of 
all/ ^ confesses* she, falling into a little whisper, and so 
turning her head that he canT see her eyes. “ Was — 
that time — you know — was my hair very crumpled? 
Was,’^ plucking nervously at the button of his coat, “ was 
1 looking very dreadful?^^ 

“Oh! darling heart! could you look that?^^ cries 

he, straining her to his heart. 


THE END. 


IRISH LOVE AND MARRIAGE. 


BY THE “DUCHESS.” 


I KNOW the popular notion is that romance runs riot in 
Ireland. All the old songs are full of this idea, and all 
the old stories. But for my part I believe there never was 
a country where romance is such a dead letter. 

Courtship and marriage is pretty much the same thing 
all the world over, given the same status in society. Select 
two people of opposite sexes, call them toward each other. 
They come, they see, and one, at all events, is conquered. 
It is the very oldest of all old games, and has been vigor- 
ously played by high and low from the hour Adam first 
laid eyes on Eve — and (if we believe in Milton) how 
charming that first view must have been — until to-day. 

They meet, these two, they look, they love — though (as 
I believe) not until they have looked a great many times. 
The theory of “ love at first sight, though useful for sen- 
timental purposes and for the working out of certain plots, 
is not a practical one; is, on ^ the contrary, distinctly sha- 
dowy. However, it may be with lovers in warmer climates, 
in mine the affection or liking that grows into passion 
takes time to ripen it. And the country is a better field 
for the 'perfecting of this state of feeling than the town — 


114 


IRISH LOVE AND MARRIAGE. 


the simple open country, that seems to hold nothing hid- 
den in its innocent Helds and hills, its delicate gardens and 
wild, glad ocean. 

See, here is a quiet village, where there are but half a 
dozen select families when all is told, and on which a 
young man from the wider spheres beyond descends, full 
of a belief in himself and his power to defy the enchant- 
ments of all the unsophisticated maidens upon earth. 
That young man arrives in the smartest of collars, the 
newest of hats, coats that Poole alone could have given — 
and finds himself somebody^s slave within a month. It is 
the careless picnic or the impromptu dance, the moonlight 
stroll or the mild tennis-party that does it; and marriage, 
the usual consequence of falling in love in this most im- 
provident of all isles, swallows that young man up alive. 

So much for the people whom we all know, among 
whom we live in every clime. For there are always the 
big people and the little, and always will be, in spite of 
every socialist that ever thundered. 

‘^The poor always ye have with you,” says St. John, 
that gentlest of all saints, and what a truth lies in his 
words! 

It is with the very poor of Ireland and their love affairs 
that I would now deal. And alas! for sentiment where 
they are concerned. It is no longer here; if it ever did 
exist, it is now dead. A cow, a pig, even a feather-bed 
has been known to infiuence the making of “ a match.” 
I know that tradition, old lore, and Moore^s melodies are 
against me, but I, who have lived among them for two- 
and-thirty years, I say this. Extremes meet. The king’s 


IRISH LOYE AND MARRIAGE. 


115 


sons or daughters may not wed according to their choice; 
their consorts must be chosen for them by their royal fa- 
ther and mother. The Irish farmer^s sons and daughters 
may not marry until a spouse is found for them and ap- 
proved of by their father and mother. And, oh, the end- 
less detail, the small bargainings, the little, little things 
that are gone into piecemeal, and that ofttimes make or 
mar the marriage. 

Love before marriage is so very exceptional as to be 
almost unknown among the farming classes in Ireland. 
Matches are made and carried out with scarcely a con- 
sideration for the. two most nearly concerned, very little or 
no intercourse being considered necessary between the two 
young people designed for bride and bridegroom until the 
actual day of marriage. It is not, indeed, at all an un- 
usual thing for the young man and woman to meet for the 
first time at the chapel gate on the morning that is to 
make them man and wife. Everything is arranged by the 
parents. Their farm is worth so much, therefore the 
eldest son is worth so much. He will inherit it. The 
burning question then is to discover some one fit to mate 
with their son — some one with a “ fortune equal to his. 
This desirable daughter-in-law once found (be she old or 
ugly), the matter may be considered arranged. The 
bridegroom, impressed by the general talk about the 
bride^s “ fortune, which always takes precedence of her 
“ looks, falls in with the family view of the affair, and a 
wedding follows as a matter of course. Providence, seeing 
all this, has mercifully ordained that most Irish girls 
should be comely. 


116 


IRISH LOVE AND MARRIAGE. 


The marriage once consummated, the old people give up 
the reins of government and retire into the chimney-cor- 
ner, leaving the young couple masters of the field. A 
most unwise arrangement, that generations of fools in 
their line have not sufficed to wipe out. 

Marriages thus completed, with all the chilling formulas 
that mark the alliances of the crowned heads of Europe, 
are nevertheless in Ireland almost always happy. Rarely 
do they turn out badly. An unfaithful husband is so 
scarce a thing that all the country-side would ring with 
the mention of him should be present himself; an unfaith- 
ful wife is almost unknown. Ireland, in spite of her 
many imperfections, in spite of her unsubduable people 
who annoy so terribly the decent House of Commons, peo- 
ple who in their native land would be feted by only the 
lowest and most vulgar class, is the most moral country in 
the world, and — if I may dare say so in face of all the 
criminality that has unhappily of late characterized it — 
the most tender-hearted. 

That I should speak so, let you of all and every political 
opinion forgive me — for I am Irish born, and Ireland I 
love — and this small, turbulent, lovable, wild, beautiful 
Ireland is both my greatest grief and my greatest joy! 

Where, then, is romance? Descending from the farmers 
to even a lower scale in the gamut of the human drama we 
get to the laborers. Poor souls! who will surely suffer the 
most now that the law has fallen with so severe a hand 
upon the landlords. For to them, the landlords, alone 
they had to look in all their griefs and woes. God pity 
them when they come to learn that the “ gentry are a 


IRISH LOVE AHD MARRIAGE. 


117 


thing of the past (which soon will be), and that the 
farmers are their only support when cruel famine presses 
on them. 

Yet even with these romance is hardly known. Until 
very lately the servants in Ireland were drawn from the 
ranks of the laborers, good and honest girls, without a 
grain of understanding in the culinary or domestic line, 
but who were quite capable of being taught. Among the 
others of my household last year was a certain Honora 
Casey, who, after five months’ hard teaching, was a very 
presentable house-maid. 

It was close on the end of Shrovetide, that most stirring 
of all times in an Irish village, when the chances of matri- 
mony ebb and flow like the tide, and when a maiden has 
barely time to hesitate as to whether she will or will not. 
During Shrove one marries very cheap, after Shrove very 
dear. “ Those intending to marry, take notice.” I was 
not intending to marry, having gone through the wedding 
ceremony many years ago, and was sitting in my drawing- 
room one night last year playing besique with the eldest of 
the children, when Honora opened the door, and, stand- 
ing on the threshold, looked hard at me. 

“ Well, Honora?” said I, feeling that something was 
due from me to her, seeing how moonstruck she appeared. 

“ I beg your pardon, ma’am,” said she, dropping an 
elaborate courtesy, “but may I go up to the entrance 
gate, ma’am, av ye plaze?” 

“ Dear me, it’s late, Honora, isn’t it?” said I. “ Nine 
o’clock, if it’s a minute — eh, Daisy?” appealing to my 


/ 


118 


IRISH LOVE AND MARRIAGE. 


little partner at besique. “ What can you want at the 
gate at this hour?'^ 

“ Plaze, ma^am, he's come," said she. 

Who's come?" asked I. 

“ Himself, ma'am. Me mother thinks it's about time 
I'd settle — an' — an' — an' she's chosen a boy for me!" 

“ Good heavens! she's going to be married," said I, ad- 
dressing the innocent Daisy, who naturally stared blankly 
at me. 

“ Who is it, Honora?" asked I, as quietly as a woman 
can who knows that one of her best servants is about to 
desert her. 

“ I don't know, ma'am," said she. 

What's his name?" demanded I. I liked the girl, 
and was reasonably anxious about her future welfare. 

“ I never heard it, ma'am," said she, with a mild but 
exasperating manner. Mother knows, but — but — I'll 
know soon if ye'll let me go to the gate." 

“ Oh, go!" said I. It seemed too dreadful. 1 had 
heard of marriages arranged like this, but up to the pres- 
ent moment I had only partly believed in them. I didn't 
quite believe still. I called her back. 

“ And when are you to be married, Honora?" asked I. 
“ Next year, eh?" 

“Law, no! To-morrow, ma'am," said she, with the 
broad and lovely smile that had endeared her to me. 

I asked no more questions. In one blow I lost my faith 
in the romance of Irish history and my house-maid. 

But if you would know whether Irish marriages are hap- 


lEISH liOVE AND MARRIAGE. 


119 


py, as a rule, my answer must be “ Yes.^^ Among the 
lower ranks one never hears of a case of infidelity, and 
among those of one^s own class — well, hardly ever! 

This, at all events, 1 can affirm, that 1 have a large, a 
tremendous number of acquaintances, and among them all 
there has been but one case of divorce, and were 1 to lay 
bare the real facts of that case to you, 1 think, dear friends, 
you would forgive her. 


THE END. 


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217 The Old Age of Monsieur Lecoq. 

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219 Chris. By W. E. Norris 25 

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221 Nora. By Carl Detlef 25 

222 Mr. Meeson’s Will. By H. Rider 

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223 The Legacy of Cain. By Wilkie 

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AUTHORS’ CATALOGUE. 

[When ordering by mail please order by numbers.'] 


Works by the author or ** Addie’s 
Husband.” 

388 Addie’s Husband ; or. Through 


Clouds to Sunshine 10 

504 My Poor Wife 10 

1046 Jessie 20 


Dower.” 

246 A Fatal Dower 20 

372 Phyllis’ Probation 10 

461 His Wedded Wife 20 

829 The Actor’s Ward 20 

Works by the author of “A Great 
Mistake.” 

244 A Great Mistake 20 

588 Cherry 10 

1040 Clarissa’s Ordeal. Ist half... 20 
1040 Clarissa’s Ordeal. 2d half. ... 20 
1137 Prince Charming 20 


Woman’s Love-Story.’’ 

322 A Woman’s Love-Story 10 

677 Griselda 20 

Mrs. Alexander’s Works. 

5 The Admiral’s Ward. . 20 

17 The Wooing O’t 20 

te The Executor 20 

380 Valerie’s Fate 10 

039 Maid, Wife, or Widow? 10 

m Which Shall it Be?. 20 


339 Mrs. Vereker’s Courier Maid. . 10 

490 A Second Life 20 

564 At Bay 10 

794 Beaton’s Bargain 20 

797 Look Before You Leap 20 

805 The Freres. Is^alf 20 

805 The Freres. 2d half 20 

806 Her Dearest Foe. 1st half 20 

806 Her Dearest Foe. 2d half 20 

814 The Heritage of Langdale — 20 

815 Ralph Wilton’s Weird 10 

900 By Woman’s Wit 20 

997 Forging the Fetters, and The 

Australian Aunt 20 

1054 Mona’s Choice 20 

1057 A Life Interest 20 

Alison’s Works. 

194 “So Near, and Yet So Far!”.. 10 

^8 For Life and Love 10 

481 The House That Jack Built. .. 10 

F. Anstey’s Works. 

59 Vic© VersS. 20 

225 The Giant’s Robe 20 

503 The Tinted Venus. A Farcical 

Romance 10 

819 A Fallen Idol 20 

R. M. Ballautyue’s Works. 

89 The Red Eric 10 

95 The Fire Brigade 10 

96 Erling the Bold 10 

TT2 Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood 

Trader 2(1 


2 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY— Pocket Edition. 


Henore De Balzac’s Works. 

776 PdreGoriot 

1128 Cousin Pons 


S. Baving-Gould’s Works. 

787 Court Royal ^ 

878 Little Tu’penny W 

1122 Eve 20 

Frank Barrett’s Works. 

986 The Great Hesper ^ 

1138 A Recoiling Vengeance 20 

Basil’s Works. 

344 “ The Wearing of tke Green 20 

647 A Coquette’s Conquest 20 

6^ A Drawn Game 20 


Anne Beale’s Works. 


188 Idonea 20 

199 The Fisher Village 10 


Walter Bssant’s Works. 


97 All in a Garden Fair 20 

137 Uncle Jack 10 

140 A Glorious Fortune 10 

146 Love Finds the Way,and Other 
Stories. By Besant and Rice 10 

230 Dorothy Forster 20 

324 In Luck at Last 10 

541 Uncle Jack 10 

651 *• Self or Bearer ” 10 

882 Children of Gibeon 20 

904 The Holy Rose 10 

90G The World Went Very Well 

Then 20 

980 To Call Her Mine 20 

1055 Katharine Regina 20 

1065 Herr' Paulus: His Rise, His 

Greatasess, and His Fall 20 

1148 The Inner House 20 

1151 For Faith and Fresdom. 20 


m. Betham-Edwards’s Works. 


273 Love and Mirage ; or, The Wait- 
ing on an Island 10 

579 The Flower of Doom,and Other 

Stories 10 

594 Doctor Jacob 20 

1023 Next of Kin— Wanted 20 


William Black’s Works. 


1 Yolande 20 

18 Shandon Bells 20 

21 Sunrise : A Story of These 

Times 20 

23 A Princess of Thule 20 

39 In Silk Attire 20 

44 Macleod of Dare 20 

49 That Beautiful Wretch 20 

50 The Strange Adventures of a 

Phaeton 20 

70 White Wings: A Yachting Ro- 
mance 10 

78 Madcap A^iolet 20 

81 A Daughter of Heth . 20 

1*4 Three Feathers * . 20 

1S6 The Monarch of Mincing Lane 20 
1^ Kilmeny.. 22 


138 Green Pastures and Piccadilly 20 
265 Judith Shakespeare : Her Love 
Affairs and Other Adventures 20 
472 The Wise Women of Inverness 10 

627 White Heather .20 

898 Romeo and Juliet: A Tale of 

Two Young Fools 90 

962 Sabina Zembra. 1st half 90 

962 Sabina Zembra. 2d half 20 

1096 The Strange Adventures of a 

House-Boat 90 

1132 In Far Lochaber 90 


B. D. Blackmore’s Works. 


67 Lorna Doone. 1st half 20 

67 Lorna Doone. 2d half 20 

427 The Remarkable History of Sir 
Thomas Upmore, Bart., M. P. 20 

615 Mary Anerley 20 

625 Erema; or. My Father’s Sin.. 20 

629 Ciipps, the Carrier 20 

630 Cradock Nowell. 1st half 20 

630 Cradock Nowell. 2d half 20 

631 Christowell. A Dartmoor Tale 20 

632 ( lara Vaughan 20 

633 The Maid of Sker. 1st half... 90 
633 The Maid of Sker. 2d half. ... 20 

636 Alice Lorraine. 1st half 20 

636 Alice Lorraine. 2d half 20 

926 Springhaven. 1st half 20 

926 Springhaven. 2d half 20 

Miss M. E. Braddon’s Works. 


35 Lady Audley’s Secret 20 

56 Phantom Fortune 90 

74 Aurora Floyd 20 

110 Under the Red Flag. 10 

153 The Golden Calf .20 

204 Vixen 20 

211 The Octoroon 10 

234 Barbara; or, Splendid Misery. 20 

263 An Ishmaelite 20 

315 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ- 
mas, 1884. Edited by Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

434 Wyllard’s Weird 20 

478 Diavola; or. Nobody’s Daugh- 
ter. Parti 20 

478 Diavola; or. Nobody’s Daugh- 
ter. Part II 20 

480 Married in Haste. Edited by 
Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

487 Put to the Test. Edited by Miss 

M. E. Braddon 20 

488 .Toshua Haggard’s Daughter... 20 

489 Rupert Godwin 20 

495 Mount Royal 20 

496 Only a Woman. Edited by Miss 

M. E. Braddon 90 

497 The Lady’s Milo 20 

498 Only a Clod 20 

499 The Cloven Foot 20 

511 A Strange World 20 

515 Sir Jasper’s Tenant 20 

524 Strangers and Pilgrims 20 

529 The Doctor’s Wife 20 

542 Fenton’s Quest 20 

544 Cut by the County; or, Grace 

Darnel 10 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY— Pocket Editton. 


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548 The Fatal Marriage, and The 

Shadow in the Corner 10 

549 Dudley Carleon ; or, Tlie Broth- 

er’s Secret, and Geoi ge Caul- 
field’s Journey 10 

652 Hostages to Fortune 20 

553 Birds of Prey 20 

554 Charlotte’s Inheritance. (Se- 

quel to “ Birds of Prey ”) 20 

557 To the Bitter End 20 

559 Taken at the Flood 20 

500 Asphodel 20 

561 Just as I am ; or, A Living Lie 20 

567 Dead Men’s Shoes 20 

570 John Blarchmont’s Legacy 20 

618 The Mistletoe Bough. Clirist- 
mas, 1885. Edited by Miss M. 

E. Biadilon 20 

840 One Thing Needful; or. The 

Penalty of Fate 20 

881 Mohawks. 1st half 20 

881 Mohawks. 2d half 20 

890 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ- 
mas, 1886. Edited by Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

943 Weavers and Weft; or, “ Love 
that Hath Us in His Net . . 20 
947 Publicans and Sinners; or, 

Lucius Davoren. 1st half 20 

947 Publicans aud Sinners; or, 

Lucius Davoren. 2d half 20 

1036 Like and Unlike 20 

1098 The Fatal Three 20 

Works by Charlotte M. Braeme* 
Author of “Dora Thorne.” 

19 Her Mother’s Sin 10 

51 Dora Thorne 20 

54 A Broken Wedding-Ring 20 

68 A Queen Amongst Women.... 10 

69 Madolin’s Lover 20 

73 Redeemed by Love; or. Love’s 

Victory 20 

76 Wife in Name Only; or, A 

Broken Heart 20 

79 Wedded aud Parted 10 

92 Lord Lynne’s Choice 10 

148 Thorns and Orange-Blossoms. 10 

190 Romance of a Black Veil 10 

220 Which Loved Him Best? 10 

2S7 Repented at Leisure. (Large 
type edition) 20 


249 *' Prince Charlie’s Daughter;’’ 

or. The Cost of Her Love. ... 10 

250 Sunshine and Roses; or, Di- 

ana’s Discipline 10 

254 The Wife’s Secret, and Fair 

but False 10 

283 The Sin of a Lifetime; or, Viv- 
ien’s Atonement 10 

287 At War With Herself 10 

92^1 At War With Herself. (Large 

type edition) 20 

288 J'rom Gloom to Sunlight; or. 

From Out the Gloom 10 

955 From Gloom to Sunlight; or. 
From Out the Gloom. (Large 
type edition) 20 


291 Love’s Warfare 10 

292 A Golden Heart 10 

293 The Shadow of a Sin 10 

948 The Shadow of a Sin. (Large 

type edition) 20 

294 Lady Hutton’s Ward 10 

294 Hilda; or. The False Vow 10 

928 Lady Hutton’s Ward 20 

928 Hilda; or. The False Vow. 

(Large type edition) 20 

295 A Woman’s War 10 

952 A Woman's War. (Large type 

edition) 20 

296 A Rose in Thorns 10 

297 Hilary’s Folly; or. Her Mar- 

riage Vow 10 

953 Hilary’s Folly; or. Her Mar- 

riage Vow. (Large type edi- 
tion) 20 

299 The Fatal Lilies, and A Bride 

from the Sea 10 

300 A Gilded Sin, and A Bridge of 

Love 10 

303 Ingledew House, and More Bit- 

ter than Death 10 

304 In Cupid’s Net 10 

305 A Dead Heart, aud Lady Gwen- 

doline’s Dream.- 10 

306 A Golden Dawn, and Love for 

a Day 10 

307 Two Kisses, and Like no Other 

Love 10 

308 Beyond Pardon 20 

322 A Woman's Love-Story 10 

323 A Willful Maid 20 

411 A Bitter Atonement 20 

433 My Sister Kate 10 

459 A Woman’s Temptation. 

(Large type edition) 20 

951 A Woman’s Temptation 10 

460 Under a Shadow 20 

465 The Earl’s Atonement 20 

460 Between Two Loves — 20 

467 A Struggle for a Ring 20 

469 Lady Darner’s Secret; or, A 

Guiding Star 20 

470 Evelyn’s Folly 20 

471 Thrown on the World 20 

476 Between Two Sins; or. Married 

in Haste 10 

516 Put Asunder; or. Lady Castle- 

mai lie’s Divorce 20 

576 Her Martyrdom 20 

626 A Fair Mystery 20 

741 The Heiress of Hilldrop; or. 
The Romance of a Young 

Girl 20 

745 For Another’s Sin ; or, A Strug- 
gle for Love 20 

792 Set in Diamonds 20 

821 The World Between Them 20 

353 A True Magdalen 20 

854 A Woman’s Error 20 

922 Marjorie 20 

924 ’Twixt Smile and Tear 20 

927 Sweet Cymbeline 20 

929 The Belle of Lynn; or. The 

Miller’s Daughter 20 

931 Lady Diana’s Pride 2U 


4 


THE SEASn)E LIBRARY— Pocket Edition, 


949 Claribel’s Love Story; or, Love’s 


Hidden Depths 20 

958 A Haunted Life ; or, Her Terri- 




969 The Mystery of Colde Fell; or, 

Not Proven 20 

973 The Squire’s Darling 20 

975 A Dark Marriage Morn 20 

978 Her Second Love 20 

982 The Duke’s Secret 20 

985 On Her Wedding Morn, and 
The Mystery of the Holly-Tree 20 
988 The Shattered Idol, and Letty 

Leigh 20 

990 The Earl’s Error, and Arnold’s 

Promise 20 

995 An Unnatural Bondage, and 

That Beautiful Lady 20 

1006 His Wife’s Judgment 20 

1008 A Thorn in Her Heart 20 

1010 Golden Gates 20 

1012 A Nameless Sin 20 

1014 A Blad Love 20 

1031 Irene’s Vow 20 

1052 Signa’s Sweetheart 20 

1091 A Modern Cinderella 10 

1134 Lord Elesmere’s Wife. 20 


1155 Lured Away; or. The Stdry of 
a Wedding - Ring, and The 
Heiress of Arne 20 

Charlotte Bronte’s Works. 

15 Jane Eyre 20 

57 Shirley 20 

944 The Professor 20 

llhoda Broughton’s Works. 

86 Belinda 20 

101 Second Thoughts 20 

227 Nancy 20 

645 Mrs. Smith of Longmains 10 

758 “Good-bye, Sweetheart!” 20 

765 Not Wisely, But Too Well 20 

767 Joan 20 

768 Red as a Rose is She 20 

769 Cometh Up as a Flower 20 

862 Betty’s Visions 10 

894 Doctor Cupid 20 

Jlary E. Bryan’s Works. 

731 The Bayou Bride 20 

857 Kildee; or, The Sphinx of the 

Red House. 1st half 20 

857 Kildee; or. The Sphinx of the 

Red House. 2d half 20 

Robert Kiichanaii’s Works. 

145 “ Storm-Beaten God and The 

Man 20 

1.54 .\nnan Water 20 

181 The New Abelard 10 

308 Matt: A Tale of a Caravan. . . 10 

646 The Master of the Mine 20 

802 That Winter Night; or. Love’s 

Victory 10 

1074 Stormy Waters 20 

1104 The Heir of Linne 20 

Captain Kred Burnaby’s Works. 

375 A Ride to Khiva 20 

384 On Horseback Through Asia 
Minor 20 


E. Fairfe^x Byrrne’s Works. 


521 Entangled 20 

538 A Fair Country Maid. 20 

Hall Caine’s Works. 

445 The Shadow of a Crime 20 

520 She’s All the World to Me 10 

Mrs. H. liovett Cameron’s Works. 

595 A North Country Maid 20 

796 In a Grass Country 20 

891 VeraNevill; or. Poor Wisdom’s 

Chance 20 

•912 Pure Gold. 1st half 20 

912 Pure Gold. 2d half 20 

963 Worth Winning 20 

1025 Dai.sy’s Dilemma 20 

1028 A Devout Lover; or, A Wasted 

Love 20 

1070 A Life’s Mistake 20 

Rosa Nouchette Carey’s Works. 

215 Not Like Other Girls 20 

396 Robert Ord’s Atonement 20 

551 Barbara Heathcote’s Trial. 1st 

half 20 

551 Barbara Heathcote’s Trial. 2d 

half 20 

608 For Lilias. 1st half 20 

608 For Lilias. 2d half 20 

930 Uncle Max. 1st half 20 

930 Uncle Max. 2d half 20 

932 Queenio’s Whim. 1st half 20 

932 Queenie’s Whim. 2d half 20 


934 Wooed and Married. 1st half. 20 
934 Wooed and Married. 2d half. 20 
936 Nellie’s Memories. 1st half... 20 
936 Nellie’s Memories. 2d half... 20 


961 Wee Wifie 20 

1033 Esther: A Story for Girls 20 

1064 Only the Governess 20 

1135 Aunt Diana 20 

JiCwis Carroll’s Works. 

462 Alice’s Adventures in Wonder- 
land. Illustrated by John 

Tenniel 20 

789 Through the Looking-Glass, 
and What Alice Found There. 
Illustrated by John Tenniel. . 20 


Wilkie Collins’s Works. 

52 The New Magdalen 10 

102 The Moonstone 20 

167 Heart and Science 20 

168 No Thoroughfare. By Dickens 

and Collins 10 

175 Love’s Random Shot, and 

Other Stories 10 

233 “ I Say No;” or. The Love-Let- 
ter Answered.. 20 

508 The Girl at the Gate 10 

.591 The Queen of Hearts 20 

613 The Ghost’s Touch, and Percj' 

and the Prophet 10 

62:3 My Lad.y’s Money 10 

701 Tlie Woman in White. 1st half 20 

701 The Woman in White. 2d half ^ 

702 Man and Wife. 1st half. ^ 

702 Man and Wife. 2d half 2-. 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY — Pocket Edition. 


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764 The Evil Genius 20 

896 The Guilty River 20 

346 The Dead Secret 20 

977 The Haunted Hotel 20 

1029 Armadale. 1st half. 20 

1029 Armadale. 2(1 half 20 

1095 The Legacy of Cain 20 

1119 No Name. 1st half 20 

1119 No Name. 2d half ^ 

Mabel Collins’s Works, 

749 Lord Vanecourt’s Daughter... 20 
828 The PrettiestWoman in Warsaw ^ 

Hugh Conway’s Works* 

240 Called Back 10 

251 The Daughter of the Stars, and 
Other Tales 10 

301 Dark Days 30 

302 The Blatchford Bequest 10 

502 Carriston’s Gift 10 

525 Paul Vargas, and Other Stories 10 

543 A Family Affair 20 

601 Slings and Arrows, and Other 

Stories 10 

711 A Cardinal Sin 20 

804 Living or Dead 20 

830 Bound by a Spell 20 


J. Feniinore Cooper’s Works. 

60 The Last of the Mohicans 20 

63 The Spy 20 

309 The Pathfinder ^ 

310 The Prairie 20 

318 The Pioneers ; or. The Sources 

of the Susquehanna 20 

349 The Two Admirals 20 

359 The Water-Witch 20 

361 The Red Rover 20 

373 Wing and Wing 20 

378 Homeward Bound; or, The 

Chase 20 

379 Home as Found. (Sequel to 

“ Homeward Bound”) 20 

380 Wyandotte; or, The Hutted 

Knoll 20 

385 The Headsman; or. The Ab- 

baye des Vignerons 20 

394 The Bra VO 20 

397 Lionel Lincoln ; or, The Leag- 
uer of Boston 20 

400 The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish.. 20 

413 Afioat and Ashore 20 

414 Miles Wallingford. (Sequel to 

“Afloat and Ashore”) 20 

415 The Ways of the Hour 20 

416 Jack Tier; or, The Florida Reef 20 

419 The Chainbearer; or. The Lit- 

tle-page Manuscripts 20 

420 Satanstoe ; or. The Littlepage 

Manuscripts 20 

421 The Redskins; or, Indian and 

Injin. Being the conclusion 
of the Littlepage Manuscripts 20 

422 Precaution 20 

423 The Sea Lions; or. The Lost 

Sealers 20 

424 Mercedes of Castile; or. The 

Voyage to Cathay 20 


425 The Oak-Openings; or, The 

Bee-Hunter 20 

431 The Monikins ^ 

1062 The Deerslayer; or. The First 

War-Path. 1st half ao 

1062 The Deerslayer; or, The First 
War-Path. 2d half ‘iO 


Marie Corelli’s Works. 

1068 Vendetta ! or. The Story of One 


Forgotten 20 

1131 Thelma. 1st half 20 

1131 Thelma. 2d half 

Georgiana M. Craik’s Works. 

450 Godfrey Helstone 20 

606 Mrs. Hollyer 20 

B. M. Croker’s Works* 

207 Pretty Miss Neville 20 

260 Proper Pride 10 

412 Some One Else 20 

1124 Diana Barrington 20 

May Cromiiielin’s Works. 

4.52 In the West Countrie 20 

619 Joy; or. The Light of Cold- 

Home Ford 20 

647 Goblin Gold 10 

Alphonse Daudet’s Works. 

534 Jack 20 

574 The Nabob: AStory of Parisian 
Life and Manners 20 

Charles Dickens’s Works. 

10 The Old Curiosity Shop 20 

22 David Copperfleld. Vol. I 20 

22 David Copperfleld. Vol. II... 20 

24 Pickwick Papers. Vol. 1 20 

24 Pickwick Papers. Vol. II 20 

37 Nicholas Nickleby. 1st half.. ^ 
37 Nicholas Nickleby. 2d half... 20 

41 Oliver Twist 20 

77 A Tale of Two Cities . . ^ 

84 Hard Times 10 

91 Barnaby Rudge. 1st half. ... 20 

91 Barnaby Rudge. 2d half ^ 

94 Little Dorrit. 1st half ^ 

94 Little Dorrit. 2d half 20 

106 Bleak House. 1st half IW 

106 Bleak House. 2d half ^ 

107 Dombey and Son. 1st half . . . ^ 

107 Dombey and Sou. 2d half 20 

108 The Cricket on the Hearth, and 

Doctor Marigold 10 

131 Our Mutual Friend. 1st half. 20 

131 Our Mutual Friend. 2d half. . 20 

132 Master Humphrey’s Clock 10 

152 The Uncommercial Traveler.. 20 

168 No Thoroughfare. By Dickens 

and Collins 10 

169 The Haunted Man 10 

437 Life and Adventures of Martin 

Chuzzlewit. 1st half 20 

437 Life and Adventures of Martin 
Chuzzlewit. 2d half 20 

439 Great Expectations ^ 

440 Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings 10 

447 American J^otes 20 


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THE SEASIDE LIBRAKY— Pocket Edition. 


448 Pictures From Italy, and The 

Mud fog Papers. &c 

454 The Mystery of Edwin Drood. 
466 Sketches by Boz. Illustrative 
of Every-day Life and Every- 
day People 

676 A Child’s Histoiy of England. 

!!»arali Doiidney’s Works. 

838 The Family Difficulty 

679 Where Two Ways Meet 

F. Du Boisgobey’s Woi’ks. 

82 Sealed Lips 

104 The Coral Pin. 1st half 

104 The Coral Pin. 2d half 

264 Pi6douche. a French Detective 
328 Babiole, the Prett}" Milliner. 

First half 

328 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. 

Second half 

453 The Lottery Ticket 

475 The Prima Donna’s Husband. 
5^ Zig-Zag, the Clown ; or. The 

Steel Gauntlets 

523 The Con.sequenees of a Duel. A 

Parisian Romance 

648 The Angel of the Bells 

697 The Pretty Jailer. 1st half . . . 

697 The Pretty Jailer. 2d half 

699 The Sculptor’s Daughter. 1st 

half 

699 The Sculptor's Daughter. 2d 

half 

782 The Closed Door. 1st half 

782 The Closed Door. 2d half 

851 The Cry of Blood. 1st half... 

851 The Cry of Blood. 2d half 

918 The Red Band. 1st half 

918 The Red Band. 2d half 

942 Cash on Delivery 

1076 The Mystery of an OmnibUs.. 

1080 Bertha’s Secret. 1st half 

1080 Bertha’s Secret. 2d half 

1082 The Severed Hand. 1st half.. 
1082 The Severed Hand, ^d half.. 
1085 The Matapan Affair. 1st lialf 
10S5 The Matapan Affair. 2d half 
1088 The Old Age of Monsieur Le- 

coq. 1st half 

1088 The Old Age of Monsieur Le- 

coq. 2d half 

“The Diiclieiss’s” 'VVorJss. 

2 Molly Bawn 

6 Portia 

14 Airy Fairy Lilian 

16 Phyllis 

25 Mrs. Geoffi-ey. (Large type 

edition) 

950 DIrs. Geoffrey 

29 Beauty’s Daughters 

30 Faith and Unfaith 

118 Loys. Lord Berresford, and 

Eric Dering 

119 Monica, and A Rose Distill’d.. 

123 Sweet is True Love 

129 Rossmoyne 

134 The Witching Hour, and Other 

Stones 


136 “That Last Rehearsal,’’ and 

Other Stories 10 

166 Moonshine and Marguerites... 10 
171 Fortune’s Wheel, and Other 

Stories 10 

284 Doris 10 

312 A Week’s Amusement; or, A 

Week in Killarney 10 

342 The Baby, and One New Year’s 

Eve 10 

390 Mildred Trevanion 10 

404 In Durance Vile, and Other 

Stories 10 

486 Dick’s Sweetheait 20 

494 A Maiden All Forlorn, and Bar- 
bara 10 

517 A Passive Crime, and Other 

Stories 10 

541 “ As It Fell Upon a Day.’’ 10 

733 Lady Branksniere 20 

771 A Mental Struggle 20 

785 The Haunted Chamber 10 

862 Ugly Barrington 10 

875 Lady Valworth’s Diamonds. . . 20 
1009 In an Evil Hour, and Other 

Stories 20 

1016 A Modern Circe 20 

1035 The Duchess 20 

1047 Marvel 20 

1103 The Honorable Mrs. Vereker. . 20 
1123 Under-Currents 20 

Alexander Dumas’s Woi*ks. 

55 The Three Guardsmen 20 

75 Twenty Years After 20 

259 The Bride of Monte-Cristo. A 
Sequel to “The Count of 

Monte-Cristo ’’ 10 

262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. 

Part 1 30 

262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. 

Part II 30 

717 Beau Tancrede; or. The Mar- 
riage Verdict 20 

1053 Masaniello; or. The Fisherman 
of Naples 20 

George Ebers’s Works. 

474 Serapis. An Historical Novel 20 

983 Uarda 20 

lO.^e The Bride of the Nile. 1st half ^ 
1056 The Bride of the Nile. 2d half 20 

1094 Hoiiio Sum 20 

1097 The Burgomaster’s Wife 20 

1101 An Egyptian Princess. Vol. I. 20 
1101 An Egyptian Princess. Vol. 11. 20 

1106 The Emperor 20 

1112 Only a Word 20 

1114 The Sisters ^ 

Maria Edgeworth’s Works. 

708 Ormond 20 

788 The Absentee. An Irish Story. 20 

Mrs. Annie Edwards’s Works. 

644 A Girton Girl 20 

834 A Ballroom Repentance 20 

835 Vivian the Beauty ^ 

836 A Point of Honor ^ 


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887 A Vagabond Hex'oine 

838 Ought We to Visit Her? 

839 Leah: A AVoman of Fashion.. 

841 Jet: Her Face or Her S'ortune? 

842 A Blue-Stocking 

843 Archie Lovell 

844 Susan Fielding 

845 Philip Earn.scliffe ; or, The 

Morals of May Fair 

846 Steven I^awrence. 1st half. .. 

846 Steven Lawrence. 2d half 

850 A Playwright’s Daughter 

George Eliot’s Works* 

3 The Mill on the Floss 

31 Middlemarch. 1st half 

31 Middlemarch. 2d half 

34 Daniel Deronda. 1st half 

34 Daniel Deronda. 2d half 

36 Adam Bede. 1st half 

36 Adam Bede. 2d half 

42 Romola 

693 Felix Holt, the Radical 

707 Silas Marner: The Weaver of 
Raveloe 

728 Janet’s Repentance 

762 Impressions of Theophrastus 

Such 

B. L. Farjcon’s Works. 

179 Little Make-Believe 

573 Love’s Harvest 

607 Self-Doomed 

616 The Sacred Nugget 

657 Christmas Angel 

907 The Bright Star of Life 

909 The Nine of Hearts 

G. Maiiville Feun’s Works, 

193 The Rosery Folk 

558 Poverty Corner 

587 The Parson o’ Dumford 

609 The Dark House 

Octave Feiiillet’s Works, 

66 The Romance of a Poor Young 

Man 

386 Led Astray; or, “ La Petite 
Comtesse ” 

Mrs. Forrester’s Works. 

80 June 

280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale of So- 
ciety 

484 Although He Was a Lord, and 

Other Tales 

715 I Have Lived and Loved 

721 Dolores 

724 Jly Lord and My Lady 

726 My Hero 

727 Fair Women 

729 Mignon 

732 From Olympus to Hades 

734 Viva 

736 Roy and Viola 

740 Rhona 

744 Diana Carew ; or. For a Wom- 
an’s Sake — 

P83 Once Again 


Jessie Fotliergill’s Works. 


314 Peril 20 

572 Healey 20 

935 Borderland ^ 

1099 The Lasses of Leverhouse. ... 20 
K. E. Fraucilloii’s Works. 

135 A Great Heiress: A Fortune 

ill Seven Checks 10 

319 Face to Face : A Fact in Seven 

Fables 10 

360 Ropes of Sand 20 

656 The Golden Flood. By R. E. 

Francillon and Wm. Senior. . 10 
911 Golden Bells 20 

Emile Gaboriau’s Works. 

7 File No. 113 20 

12 Other People’s Money 2fl 

20 AVithin an Inch of His Life... 20 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. Vol 1 20 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. Vol. II 20 

33 The Clique of Gold 20 

38 The AVidow Lerouge ^ 

43 The Mystery of Orcival 20 

144 Promises of Marriage 10 

979 The Count’s Secret. Parti... 20 
979 The Count’s Secret. Part II.. 20 

1002 Marriage at a A^enture 20 

1015 A Tliousand Francs Reward.. 20 

1045 The 13th Hussars 20 

T078 The Slaves of Paris. — Black- 
mail. 1st half 20 

1078 The Slaves of Paris. — The 

Champdoce Secret. 2d half.. 20 
1083 The Little Old Man of the Bat- 
ignolles 10 

Cbarle.s Gibbon’s Works. 

64 A Maiden Fair 10 

317 By Mea<l and Stream 20 

Jniiies Grant’s VA^orks. 

566 The Royal Highlanders; or, 
The Black AVatch in Egypt... 20 

781 The Secret Dispatch 10 

Miss Grant’s Works. 

222 The Sun -Maid 20 

555 Cara Roma 20 

Arthur Griffiths’s Works. 

614 No. 99 10 

680 Fast and Loose 20 

II. Rider Haggard’s Works. 
The Witch’s Head . 520 

753 King Solomon’s Mines 20 

910 She: A History of Adventure. 20 

941 Jess ... 20 

959 Dawn 20 

989 Allan Quatermain 20 

1049 A Tale of Three Lions, and On 
Going Buck 20 

1100 Mr. Meeson’s AVill. 20 

1105 Maiwa’s Revenge 10 

1140 Colonel Quaritch, V. C 20 

1145 My Fellow Laborer 20 

Thomas Hardy’s Works. 

139 The Romantic Adventures of 

a Milkmaid. 10 

530 A Pair of Blue Eyes 2fl 


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THE SEASIDE LIBRARY— Pocket Edition. 




«5f50 Far From the Jladdintr Crowd 20 
701 The Mayor of Casterbridge. .. 20 

iK5 The Trumpet-Major 20 

957 The Woodlanders 90 

Johu B, Harwood’s Works. 

143 Oue False, Both Fair 20 

858 Within the Clasp 20 

Mary Cecil Hay’s Works. 

65 Back to tlie Old Home 10 

72 Old Myddel ton’s Money 20 

196 Hidden Perils 20 

197 For Her Dear Sake 20 

221 The Arundel Motto 20 

The Sqtiire’s Legacy 20 

290 Nora’s Love Test 20 

408 liester’s Secret 20 

678 Dorothy’s Venture 20 

716 Victor and Vanquished ... 20 

849 A Wicked Girl 20 

987 Brenda Yorke 20 

1026 A Dark Inheritance 20 

Mrs. C'asliel-Hoey’s Works. 

313 The Lover s Creed 20 

802 A Stern Chase 20 

Tiglie Hopkins’s Works. 

509 Nell Haffeuden 20 

714 ’Twixt Love and Duty 20 

Thomas Hughes’s Works. 

120 Tom Brown’s School Days at 

Rugby 20 

1139 Tom Brown at Oxford. Vol. I. 20 
1139 Tom Brown at Oxford. Vol. II. 20 

Fergus W. Hiiine’s Works. 

1075 The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. 20 
1127 Madam Midas 20 

Works by the Author of ** Judith 
Wynne.” 

332 .Judith Wynne 20 

506 Lady Lovelace 20 

Williniii H. G. Kingston’s Works. 

117 A Tale of the Shore and Ocean 20 

133 Peter the Whaler 10 

761 Will W’eatherhelm 20 

763 Tlie Midshipman, Marmadpke 
Merry .20 

Vernon Lee’s Works. 

399 Mi.ss Brown 20 

8.‘)9 Ottilie; An Eighteenth Century 
Idyl. By Vernon Lee. Th'e 
Princeof the 100 Soups. Edit- 
ed by Vernon Lee 20 

Charles Lever’s Works. 

191 Harry Lorrequer 20 

212 Charles O’Malley, the Irish 

Dragoon. 1st half 20 

212 Charles O’Malley, the Irish 

Dragoon. 2d half 20 

343 Tom Burke of “ Ours.” 1st half 20 
843 Tom Burke of “Ours.” 2d half 20 


Mary Linskill’s Works. 

473 A Lost Son 20 

620 Between the Heather and the 

Northern Sea 20 

31rs. E. Lynn Linton’s Works. 

122 lone Stewart 20 

817 Stabbed in the Dark 10 

886 Paston Carew, Millionaire and 

Miser 20 

1109 Through the Long Nights. 1st 

half 20 

1109 Through the Long Nights. 2d 

half 20 

Samuel Lover’s Works. 

663 Handy Andy 20 

664 Rory O’More 20 

Edna Ly all’s Works. 

738 In the Golden Days 20 

1147 Knight-Errant. 20 

1149 Donovan: A Modern English- 
man. 20 


Sir E« Bulwer Lytton’s Works. 


40 The Last Days of Pompeii 20 

83 A Strange Story 20 

90 Ernest Maltravers 20 

130 The Last of the Barons. 1st half 20 
130 The Last of the Barons. 2d half 20 

162 Eugene Aram 20 

164 Leila; or, The Siege of Grenada 10 
650 Alice ; or. The Mysteries. (A Se- 
quel to “ Ernest Maltravers ”) 20 

720 Paul Clifford .^. 20 

1144 Rienzi. . 20 

George Macdonald’s Works* 

282 Doual Grant 20 

325 The Portent 10 

326 Phantasies. A Faerie Romance 

for Men and Women 10 

722 What’s Mine’s Mine 20 

1041 Home Again 20 

1118 The Elect Lady 20 

Katharine S. Macquoid’s Works* 

479 Louisa 20 

914 Joan Wentworth 20 

E. Marlitt’s Works. 

6.52 The Lady with tlie Rubies 20 

8.58 Old Ma’m’selle’s Secret 20 

972 Gold Elsie 20 

999 The Second Wife 20 

1093 In the Schillingscourt 20 

1111 In the Counsellor's House ^ 

1113 The Bailiff’s Maid 20 

1115 The Countess Gisela 20 

1130 The f)wl-House ^ 

1136 'I’he Princess of the Moor. .. 20 

Florence Marryat’s Works. 

159 Captain Norton’s Diary, and 

A Moment of Madness.- 10 

183 Old Contrairy, and Other 
Stories 10 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY — Pocket Edition. 9 


308 The Ghost of Charlotte Cray, 

and Other Stories 10 

276 Under the Lilies and Roses... 10 

444 The Heart of Jane Warner 20 

449 Peeress and Player 20 

689 The Heir Presumptive ^ 

886 The Master Passion 20 

860 Her L7)rd and Master 20 

861 My Sister the Actress 20 

863 “ My Own Child.” 20 

864 No Intentions.” ^ 

865 Written in Fire 20 

866 Miss Harrington’s Husband; 

or. Spiders of Society 20 

867 The Girls of Feversham ^ 

868 Petronel ^ 

869 The Poison of Asps 10 

870 Out ot His Reckoning 10 

872 With Cupid’s Eyes 20 

873 A Harvest of Wild Oats 20 

877 Facing the Footlights 20 

893 Love’s Conflict. 1st half 20 

893 Love’s Conflict. 2d half 20 

895 A Star and a Heart 10 

897 Ange 20 

899 A Little Stepson 10 

901 A Lucky Disappointment 10 

903 Phyllida 20 

905 The Fair-Haired Aida 20 

939 Why Not? 20 

993 Fighting the Air 20 

998 Open Sesame 20 

1004 Mad Dumaresq 20 

1013 The Confessions of Gerald Est- 

court 20 

1022 Driven to Bay 20 

1126 Gentleman and Courtier 20 

Captain Marryat’s Works. 

88 The Privateersman 20 

272 The Little Savage 10 

279 Rattlin, the Reefer ... 20 

991 Mr. Midshipman Easy 20 

Helen B. Mathers’s Works. 

13 Eyre’s Acquittal 1C 

221 Coinin’ Thro’ the Rye 20 

438 Found Out 10 

535 Murder or Manslaughter? 10 

673 Story of a Sin 20 

713 ” Clierry Ripe ” 20 

795 Sam’s Sweetheart 20 

I 798 The Fashion of this World — 10 
799 My Lady Green Sleeves 20 

Justin McCarthy’s Works. 

121 Maid of Athens 20 

602 Camiola 20 

685 England Under Gladstone. 

1880-1885 20 

747 Our Sensation Novel. Edited 
by Justin H. McCarthy, M.P. . 10 
779 Doom 1 An Atlantic Episode. . 10 
George Meredith’s Works. 

350 Diana of the Crossways 10 

1146 Rhoda Fleming. 20 


1160 The Egoist. .30 


Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller’s 


Works. 

267 Laurel Vane; or, The Girls’ 

Conspiracy 20 

268 Lady Gay’s Pride; or, The 

Miser’s Treasure 20 

269 Lancaster’s Choice ^ 

316 Sworn to Silence; or, Aline 

Rodney’s Secret 20 


Jean Middleinas’s Works. 


155 Lady Muriel’s Secret 20 

539 Silvermead ^ 

Alau Muir’s Works. 

172 “Golden Girls” 20 

346 Tumbledown Farm 10 

Miss Mulock’s Works. 

11 John Halifax, Gentleman. 1st 

half 20 

11 John Halifax, Gentleman. 2d 

half 30 

245 Miss Tommy, and In a House- 

Boat 10 

808 King Arthur. Not a Love Story 20 

1018 'I’wo Marriages 20 

1038 Mistress and Maid 20 

1053 Young Mrs. Jardine 20 


David Christie Murray’s Works. 


58 Bj' the Gate of the Sea 10 

195 “ The Way of the World ” 20 

320 A Bit of Human Nature 10 

661 Rainbow Gold 20 

674 First Person Singular 20 

691 Valentine Strange 20 

695 Hearts: Queen, Knave, and 

Deuce 20 

698 A Life's Atonement 20 

737 Aunt Rachel 10 

826 Cynic Fortune 39 

898 Bulldog and Butterfly, and Ju- 
lia and Her Romeo 20 

1102 Young Mr. Barter’s Repent- 
ance 10 


Works by the author of “ My 
Ducats and My Daughter.” 

376 The Crime of Christmas Day. 10 
596 My Ducats and My Daughter. . 20 

W. E. Norris’s Works. 


184 Thirlby Hall 20 

277 A Man of His Word 10 

355 That Terrible Man 10 

500 Adrian Vidal 30 

824 Her Own Doing 10 

848 My Friend Jim 20 

871 A Bachelor’s Blunder 20 

1019 Major and* Minor. 1st half 20 

1019 Major and Minor. 2d half 20 

1084 Chris 20 

1141 The Rogue. 1st half 20 

1141 The Rogue. 2d half 20 


Laurence Oliphant’s Works. 


47 Altiora Peto 30 

687 Piccadilly 10 


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Mrs. Olipliaiit’s AVorks. 

45 A Little Pilgrim 

177 Salem Chapel 

305 The Minister’s Wife 

821 The Prodigals, and Their In- 
heritance 

337 Memoirs and Resolutions of 
Adam Graeme of Mossgra}’, 
including some Chronicles of 

the Borough of Fendie 

345 Madam 

351 The House on the Moor 

357 John 

370 Lucy Ci ofton 

371 Margaret Maitland 

877 Magdalen Hepburn : A Story of 

the Scottish Reformation .... 
402 Lilliesleaf ; or, Passages in the 
Life of Mrs. Margaret Mait- 
land of Sunnyside 

410 Old Lady Mary 

527 The Days of My Life 

528 At His Gates 

568 The Perpetual Curate 

669 Harry Muir 

60.‘3 Agnes. 1st half 

603 Agnes. 2d half 

604 Innocent. 1st half 

604 Innocent. 2d half 

605 Ombra 

645 Oliver’s Bride 

655 The Open Door, and The Por- 
trait 

687 A Country Gentleman 

703 A House Divided Against Itself 
710 The Greatest Heiress in Eng- 
land 

827 Effle Ogilvie 

880 The Son of His Father 

902 A Poor Gentleman 

“ Oiiida’s ” AVorks. 

4 Under Two Flags. 

9 Wanda, Countess von Szalras. 

116 Moths 

128 Afternoon, and Other Sketches 

226 Friendship 

228 Princess Napraxine 

238 Pascarel 

239 Signa. 

433 A Rainy June 

639 Othmar. 1st half 

639 Othmar. 2d half 

671 Don Gesualdo 

672 In Maremma. 1st half 

672 In Maremma. 2d half 

874 A House Party 

974 Strathmore; or. Wrought by 

His Own Hand. 1st half 

974 Strathmore; or, AVrought by 

His Own Hand. 2d half 

981 Granville de Vigne;*or, Held in 

Bondage. 1st half 

981 Granville de Vigne; or. Held in 

Bondage. 2d half 

996 Idalia. 1st half 

996 Idalia. 2d half 

1000 Puck. 1st half 

1000 Puck. 2d half 


1003 Chandos. 1st half 

1003 Chandos. 2d half 

1017 Tricotrin. 1st half 

1017 Tricotrin. 2d half 

James Payn’s AVorks. 

48 Thicker Than Water 

186 The Canon's Ward 

343 The Talk of the Town 

577 In Peril and Privation 

589 The Luck of the Darrells 

823 The Heir of the Ages 

Miss .lane Porter’s AVorks. 
660 3’he Scottish Chiefs. 1st half. 
660 The Scottish Chiefs. 2d half. 
696 Thaddeus of Warsaw 

Cecil Power’s Works. 

336 Philistia 

611 Babylon 

Mrs. Campbell Praed’s AVork8< 

428 Zero : A Story of Monte-Carlo 

477 Affinities 

811 The Head Station 

Eleanor C. Price’s AVorks. 

173 The Foreigners 

331 Gerald. 

Charles Reade’s Works. 

46 Very Hard Cash 

98 A Woman-Hater 

206 The Picture, and Jack of All 

Trades 

210 Readiana: Comments on Cur- 
rent Events 

213 A Terrible Temptation 

214 Put Yourself in His Place 

216 Foul Play 

231 Griffith Gaunt; or, Jealousy.. 

232 Love and Money ; or, A Peril- 

(tus Secret 

235 “It is Never Too Late to 
Mend.” A Matter-of-Fact Ro- 
mance 

Mrs. J. H. Riddell’s AA'orks. 

71 A Struggle for Fame 

593 Berna Boyle 

1007 Miss Gascoigne 

1077 The Nun’s Curse 

“Rita’s” Works. 

252 A Sinless Secret 

446 Dame Durden 

598 “ Corinna.’’ A Study : 

617 Like Dian’s Kiss 

1125 The Mystery of a Turkish Bath 

F. AV. Robinson’s Works. 

157 Milly’sHero 

217 The Man She Cared For 

261 A Fair Maid 

455 Lazarus in London 

590 The Courting of Mary Smith. . 

1005 99 Dark Street 


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W. Clark Russell’s Works. 

85 A Sea Queen 20 

109 Little Loo 20 

180 Round the Galley Fire 10 

209 John Holdsworth, Chief Mate. 10 

223 A Sailor’s Sweetheart 20 

592 A Strange Vovage 20 

682 In the Middle Watch. Sea 

Stories 20 

743 Jack’s Courtship. 1st half... 20 

743 Jack’s Courtship. 2d half 20 

884 A Voyage to the Cape ^ 

916 The Golden Hope 20 

1044 The Frozen Pirate ^ 

1048 The Wreck of the “Grosvenor” ^ 
1129 The Flying Dutchman; or, The 

Death Ship 20 

Adeline Sergeant’s Works. 

257 Beyond Recall 10 

S12 No Saint 20 

Sir Walter Scott’s Works. 

28 Ivanhoe 20 

201 The Monastery 20 

^2 The Abbot. (Sequel to “The 

Monastery ’’) 20 

353 The Black Dwarf, and A Le- 
gend of Montrose 20 

362 The Bride of Lammermoor. . . 20 

363 The Surgeon’s Daughter 10 

364 Castle Dangerous 10 

391 The Heart of Mid-Lothian 20 

892 Peveril of the Peak 20 

393 The Pirate 20 

401 Waverley 20 

417 The Fair Maid of Perth ; or, St. 

Valentine’s Day 20 

418 St. Rouan’s Well 20 

463 Redgauntlet. A Tale of the 

Eighteenth Century 20 

507 Chronicles of the Canongate, 

and Other Stories 10 

1060 The Lady of the Lake 20 

1063 Kenilworth. 1st half 20 

1063 Kenilworth. 2d half 20 

J. 11. Sliorthoiise’s Works. 

Ill The Little School-master Mark 10 
1148 The Countess Eve 20 

William Sime’s Works. 

429 Boulderstone; or. New Men 

and Old Populations 10 

580 The Red Route 20 

597 Haco the Dreamer 10 

649 Cradle and Spade 20 

Hawley Smart’s Works. 

348 From Post to Finish. A Racing 

Romance 20 

367 Tie and Trick 20 

550 Struck Down 10 

847 Bad to Beat 10 

925 The Outsider 20 

Frank E. Smedley’s Works. 

333 Frank Fairlegh; or, Scenes 
from the Life of a Private 

Pupil 30 

503 Lewis Arundel; or, The Rail- 
road of Life 30 


T. W. Speight’s Works. 

150 For Himself Alone 10 

653 A Barren Title 10 

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Works. 

686 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and 

Mr. Hyde 10 

704 Prince Otto 10 

832 Kidnapped 20 

855 The Dynamiter 20 

856 New Arabian Nights 20 

888 Treasure Island 10 

889 An Inland Voyage 10 

940 The Merry Men, and Other 

Tales and Fables 20 

1051 The Misadventures of John 

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1110 The Silverado Squatters 20 

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621 The Warden 10 

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395 The Archipelago on Fire 10 

578 Mathias Saudorf. Rlustrated. 

Part 1 10 

578 Mathias Sandorf. 111. Part II. 10 
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659 The Waif of the “ Cynthia ”. . 20 
751 Great Vo.yages and Great Navi- 
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751 Great Voyages and Great Navi- 
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833 Ticket No. “9672.” 1st half . . . 10 
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Flying Machine.. 20 

1011 Texar’s Vengeance ; or. North 

Versus South. Parti 20 

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1020 Michael Strogoff; or, The 

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286 Deldee ; or. The Iron Hand. . . 20 

482 A Vagrant Wife ^ 

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820 Doris's Fortune ^ 

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Night’s Entertainment 20 

1067 A Woman’s Face; or, A Lake- 
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760 Aurelian ; or, Rome in the Third 

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Hamiiel Warren’s Works. 

406 The Merchant’s Clerk 10 

1142 Ten Thousand a Year. Part I 20 
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327 Raymond’s Atonement 20 

540 At a High Price 20 

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1067 Saint Michael. 2d half 20 

1089 Home Sounds 20 

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409 Roy’s Wife 20 

451 Market Harborough, and In- 
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600 Houp-La. Illustrated 10 

638 In Quarters with the 25th (The 

Black Horse) Dragoons 10 

688 A Man of Honor. Illustrated. 10 
746 Cavalry Life: or. Sketches anti 
Stories in Barracks and Out. 20 
813 Army Society. Life in a Gar- 
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818 Pluck 10 


966 A Siege Baby anti Chiiclhood’s 

Memories 20 

971 Garrison Gossip: Gathered in 

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1032 Mignon ’s Husband 20 

1039 Driver Dallas 10 

1079 Beautiful Jim: of the Blank- 

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1117 Princess Sarah lo 

1121 Booties’ Children 10 

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255 The Mysterj' 20 

277 The Surgeon’s Daughters 10 

508 The Unholy Wish 10 

513 Helen Whitne3’’s Wed(iing, and 

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514 The Mystery of Jessy Page, 

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610 The Story of Dorothy Grape, 

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1001 I^dy Adelaide’s Oath; or, The 

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275 The Three Brides 10 

535 Henrietta’s Wish; or, Domi- 
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563 The Two Sides of the Shield... 20 
640 Nuttie’s Father ^ 

665 The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest. 20 

666 My Young Alcides: A Faded 

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730 The Caged Lion 20 

742 Love and Life 20 

783 Chantry House ^ 

790 The Chaplet of Pearls ; or. The 
White and Black Ribaumont. 

1st half 20 

790 The Chaplet of Pearls ; or, The 
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2d half 20 

800 Hopes and Fears ; or. Scenes 
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1st half 20 

800 Hopes and Fears; or. Scenes 
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887 A Modern Telemachus 20 

1024 Under the Storm; or. Stead- 
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1133 Our New Mistress 20 


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53 The Story of Ida. Francesca. . 10 
61 Charlotte Temple. Mrs. Row- 


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99 Barbara’s History. Amelia B. 

Edwards 20 

103 Rose Fleming. Dora Russell. . 10 
105 A Noble Wife. John Saunders 20 

112 The Waters of Marah. John 

Hill 20 

113 Mrs. Carr’s Companion. M. 6. 

Wightwick 10 

114 Some of Our Girls. Mrs. C. J. 

Eiloart 20 

115 Diamond Cut Diamond. T. 

Adolphus Trollope 10 

127 Adrian Bright. Mrs. Caddy 20 

149 The Captain’s Daughter. From 

the Russian of Pushkin 10 

151 The Ducie Diamonds. C. Blath- 

erwick 10 

156 “For a Dream’s Sake.” Mrs. 

Herbert Martin 20 

158 The Starling. Norman Mac- 

leod, D.D 10 

160 Her Gentle Deeds. Sarah Tytler 10 

161 The Lady of Lyons. Founded 

on the Play of that title by 

Lord Lytton 10 

163 Winifred Power. Joyce Dar- 
rell 20 

170 Great ’[’reason, A. By Mary 
Hoppus. 1st half 20 


170 Great Treason, A. By Mary 

Hoppus. 2d half 20 

174 Under a Ban. Mrs. Lodge ^ 

176 An April Day. Philippa Prit- 

tie Jephson 10 

178 More Leaves from the Journal 
of a Life in the Highlands. 

Queen Victoria 10 

182 The Millionaire 20 

185 Dita. Lady Margaret Majendie 10 
187 The Midnight Sun. Fredrika 

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198 A Husband’s Story 10 

203 John Bull and His Island. Max 
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218 Agnes Sorel. G. P. R. James.. 20 

219 Lady Clare : or. The Master of 


the Forges. Georges Ohnet 10 
242 The Two Orphans. D’Ennery. 10 
253 The Amazon. Carl Vosmaer.. 10 
266 The Water-Babies. Rev. Chas. 

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274 Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, 
Princess of Great Britain and 
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and Letters 10 

285 The Gambler’s Wife 20 

289 John Bull’s Neighbor in Her 
True Light. A “ Brutal Sax- 
on ” 10 

311 Two Years Before the Mast. R. 

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329 The Polish Jew. (Translated 

from the French by Caroline 
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330 May Blossom ; or, Between Two 

Loves. Margaret Lee 20 

334 A Marriage of Convenience. 

Harriett Jay 10 

335 The White Witch 20 

340 Under Which King? Compton 

Reade 20 

341 Madolin Rivers; or. The Little 

Beauty of Red Oak Seminary. 

Laura Jean Libbey 20 

347 As Avon Flows. Henry Scott 

Vince 20 

352 At Any Cost. Edward Garrett. 10 
354 The Lottery of Life. A Story 
of New York Twenty Years 
Ago. John Brougham SO 


3.55 The Princess Dagomar of Po- 

land. Heinrich Felbermann. 10 

3.56 A Good Hater. Frederick Boyle 20 
365 George Christy ; or. The Fort- 


unes of a Minstrel. Tony 

Pastor 20 

366 The Mysterious Hunter; or. 
The Man of Death. Capt. L. 

C. Carieton 20 

374 The Dead Man’s Secret. Dr. 
Jupiter Paeon 20 

381 The Red Cardinal. Frances 

Elliot 10 

382 Tliree Sisters. Elsa D’Esterre- 

Keeling 10 

383 Introduced to Society. Hamil- 

ton AId6 10 


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THE SEASIDE LIBRARY^-Pocket Edition. 


387 The Secret of the Cliffs. Char- 
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403 An English Squire. C. R. Cole- 
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407 Tylney Hall. Thomas Hood. . . 20 
4^ Venus’s Doves. Ida Ashworth 

Taylor 20 

430 A Bitter Reckoning. Author 
of “By Crooked Paths ’’ 10 

435 Klytia; A Story of Heidelberg 

Castle. George Taylor 20 

436 Stella. Fanny Lewaid 20 

441 A Sea Change. Flora L. Shaw. 20 

442 Ranthorpe. George Henry 

Lewes 20 

443 The Bachelor of the Albany... 10 

457 The Russians at the Gates of 

Herat. Charles Marvin .’ 10 

458 A Week of Passion; or, The 

Dilemma of Mr. George Bar- 
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Jenkins 20 

468 The Fortunes, Good and Bad, 
of a Sewing-Girl. Charlotte 

M. Stanlej^ 10 

483 Betwixt My Love and Me. By 

author of “ A Golden Bar . . 10 
485 Tinted Vapours. J. Maclaren 

Cobban 10 

491 Society in London. A Foreign 

Resident 10 

493 Colonel Enderby’s Wife. Lucas 

Malet 20 

501 Mr. Butler’s Ward. F. Mabel 

Robinson 20 

504 Curly : An Actor’s Story. John 

Coleman.., 10 

505 The Society of Loudon. Count 

Paul Vasili 10 

510 A Mad Love. Author of “ Lover 

and Lord’’ 10 

512 The Waters of Hercules 20 

518 The Hidden Sin 20 

519 James Gordon’s Wife 20 

526 Madame De Fresnel. E. Fran- 
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532 Arden Court. Barbara Graham 20 

5V.3 Hazel Kirke. Marie Walsh 20 

536 Dis.solving Views. Mrs. Andrew 
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545 Vida’s Story. By the author of 

“ Guilty Without Crime ”. . . 10 

546 Mrs. Keith’s Crime. A Novel.. 10 

571 Paul Crew’s Story. Alice Co- 
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575 The Finger of Fate. Captain , 
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581 The Betrothed. (I Promessi 

Sposi.) Allessandro Manzoni 20 

582 Lucia, Hugh and Another. Mrs. 

J. H. Needed 20 

583 Victory Deane. Cecil Griffith. . 20 

584 Mixed Motives 10 

599 Lancelot Ward, M.P. George 

Temple 10 

612 My Wife’s Niece. By the author 

of “ Dr. Edith Romnei' ” 20 

624 Primus in Indis. M. J. Colqu- 
houn J.. 10 


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lon 20 

Tho Rabbi’s Spell. Stuart C. 

Cumberland 10 

The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey 
Crayon, Gent. Washington 

Irving 20 

“ Us.’’ An Old-fashioned Story. 

Mrs. Molesworth 10 

The Mystery of Allan Grale. 

Isabella Fy vie Mayo 20 

Half-Way. An Anglo-French 

Romance 20 

Tiie Philosophy of Whist. 

William Pole 20 

Mrs. Dymond. Miss Thackeray 20 
A Singer’s Story. May Laffan. 10 
The Bachelor Vicar of New- 
forth. Mrs. J. Harcourt-Roe. 20 
Last Days at Apswich 10 

The Mikado, and Other Comic 
Operas. Written by W. S. 
Gilbert. Composed by Arthur 

Sullivan 20 

The Woman I Loved, and the 
Woman Who Loved Me. Isa 

Blagden 10 

A Crimson Stain. Annie Brad- 
shaw 10 

For Maimie’s Sake. Grant 

Allen 20 

Unfairly Won. Mrs. Power 

O’Donoghue 20 

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. 

Lord Byron 10 

Mauleverer’s Millions. T. We- 

myss Reid 20 

My Ten Years’ Imprisonment. 
Silvio Pellico 10 

The Autobiography of Benja- 
min Franklin 10 

Until the Day Breaks. Emily 

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Hurrish : A Study. By the 

Hon. Emily Lawless 20 

An Old Story of My Farming 
Days. Fritz Reuter. 1st half 20 
An Old Stoiy of My Farming 
Days. Fritz Reuter. 2d half 20 


Jackanapes, and Other Stories. 
Juliana Horatia Ewing ...... 10 

How to be Happy Though Mar- 
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University of Matrimony 20 

Margery Daw 20 

The Strange Adventures of Cap- 
tain Dangerous. A Narrative 
in Plain English. Attempted 

by George Augustus Sala 20 

Love’s Martyr. Laurence Alma 

Tadema 10 

In Shallow AVaters. Annie Ar- 

initt 20 

No. XIII; or, The Story of the 
Lost Vestal. Emma Marshall 10 
The Castle of Otranto. Hor- 
ace Walpole 10 


634 

641 

643 

654 

662 

668 

669 

675 

681 

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766 

770 


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773 Tlie Mark of Cain. Andrew 

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774 The Life and Travels of Mungo 

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777” The Voyages and Travels of 

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778 Society’s Verdict. By the au- 
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786 Ethel Mildmay’s Follies. By 
author of “Petite’s Romance” 20 
796 Vivian Grey. By the Rt. Hon. 
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 

Beaconsfield. 1st half 20 

798 Vivian Grey. By the Rt. Hon. 
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 

Beaconsfield. 2d half 20 

801 She Stoops to Conquer, and 
The Good-Natured Man. Oli- 
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803 Major Frank. A. L. G. Bos- 
boom-Tonssnint 20 


807 If Love Be Love. D. Cecil Gibbs 20 


809 Witne.ss My Hand. B 3 ^ author 
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810 The Secret of Her Life. Ed- 

w^ard Jenkins 20 

816 Rogues and Vagabonds. By 
George R. Sims, author of 

“’O.stler Joe” 20 

822 A Passion Flower. A Novel. . . 20 
852 Under Five Lakes. M. Quad. 20 
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885 Les IMisOrables. Victor Hugo. 

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885 Les Mis6rables. Victor Hugo. 

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885 LesMis6rables. Victor Hugo. 

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908 A Willful Young Woman. Alice 

Price 20 

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920 A Child of the Revolution, By 

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933 A Hidden Terror. Mary Albert 20 

937 Cashel Byron’s Profession. By 
George Bernard Shaw. ... ... 20 

938 Cranford. By Mrs. Gaskell . . . 20 
954 A Girl’s Heart. By the author 

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956 Her Johnnie. By Violet Whyte 20 

964 A Struggle for the Right; or. 

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965 Periwinkle. By Arnold Gray. 20 

966 He, by the author of King 
Solomon’s Wives”; and A 
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970 King Solomon’s Wives ; or. The 
Phantom Mines. B 3 ' Hyder 

Ragged, (Illustrated) 20 

984 Her Own Sister. By E. S. WilL 

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992 Marrying and Giving in Mar- 
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994 A Penniless Orphan. By W. 

Heimburg 20 

1030 The Mistress of Ibichstein, By 

Fr. Henkel 20 

1034 The Silence of Dean Maitland. 

By Maxwell Gray 20 

1043 Faust. By Goethe 20 

1059 Confessions of an English 
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De Quincey 20 

1061 A Queer Race. By William 

20 

1072 Only a Coral Giii, B3'(3ertrude 

Forde 20 

1081 Too Curious. By Edward J. 

Goodman 20 

1086 Nora. By Carl Detlef 20 

1092 A Glorious Gallop. By Mrs. 

Edward Kennai-d 20 

1107 The Passenger from Scotland 

Yard. By H. F. Wood 20 

1120 The Story of an African Farm. 

By Ralph Iron (Olive Schrei- 
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count oi their su- 
perior tone and 
unequoled dura- 
bility. 

The 80HMCB 
Piano is a sj>ecial 
favorite with tho 
leading musicians 
and critics. 


ARB AT PRESENT THE MOST POPUIiAR 
AND PREFERRED BY THE LEADING ARTISTS. 
SOHMER d: CO.. Mnuufuctnrers* No. 149 to 155 E.14tli Street, N* Y. 


30 tom pressure 


is given to every cake of 


Cashmere Bouquet Soap. 


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